FBI/MICHAEL COHEN/RUSSIA INVESTIGATION/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP BUSINESS: “Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s longtime lawyer, was in constant contact with — and received thousands of dollars from — a Russia-linked firm starting on Election Day in 2016, newly unsealed court documents show. The transactions soon caught the attention of investigators, as the FBI zeroed in on what it considered to be suspicious emails and bank transfers from Cohen’s accounts — including his Trump Organization email account. With special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation in full swing, authorities filed a series of search warrants between July and November 2017 to investigate whether the exchanges violated foreign agent laws and constituted wire fraud and money laundering. The search warrants were unsealed as part of a case brought by several media organizations, including POLITICO. Much of what the warrants reveal has already been well-documented — Cohen is now serving three years in prison for making false statements to Congress, as well as tax and bank fraud. But the warrants document how focused agents with Mueller’s team were in the early stages of its investigation on tracking the foreign entanglements of Trump’s most loyal fixer.”
–Natasha Bertrand, “FBI search warrants detail Michael Cohen Russia ties” Politico, May 22, 2019 3:58 pm