Cohen Investigators Restore 16 Pages From His Shredder

(Bloomberg) -- U.S. prosecutors reconstructed 16 pages of shredded documents that were part of the material seized April 9 from President Donald Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen.

The government said it also obtained 731 pages of messages, including call logs, from applications such as WhatsApp and Signal, which encrypt data, and about 315 megabytes from a BlackBerry. The material is the most recent to be produced to Cohen’s legal team out of more than 3.7 million items taken in the FBI search of his home, hotel room and office.

The information was contained in a letter updating the judge who is overseeing the review of the seized files. Lawyers for the government on Friday detailed files that were turned over to Cohen’s team in the last two days. Both sides asked U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood to give Cohen’s legal team 10 days to review the new material.

Cohen, under severe financial pressure, has decided to split with his current team and hire new lawyers, according to a person familiar with the case. Cohen worked with Trump for a decade and is the focus of a criminal investigation by New York federal prosecutors.

Cohen’s team of lawyers is doing an initial review of the files. They designate material believed to be protected by attorney-client privilege or that constitutes highly personal items, such as medical records.

They send their findings to retired judge Barbara Jones, who was appointed by Wood to help in the review. Wood, who gets the final say on any privilege claims, gave Cohen’s lawyers until Friday to complete a review of files that had already been turned over to them.

In an initial review of more than 292,000 items, Jones found on June 4 that 162 should be held back because they’re privileged or personal.

The case is In the Matter of Search Warrants Executed on April 9, 2018, 18-mj-3161, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

To contact the reporter on this story: Bob Van Voris in federal court in Manhattan at rvanvoris@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Joe Schneider

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