Judge orders publication of Michael Cohen's search warrants

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The five terms in total include searches by the special advocate between July and November 2017 in Cohen emails and other content related to his email accounts, the order said.

Chief Justice Beryl Howell issued an order in response to a lawsuit brought by CNN and other media seeking the publication of the court records.

Some documents will be deleted when the Department of Justice makes them public, as was the case for Mr. Cohen's search warrants in federal court in New York. The redactions will keep secret the details of the ongoing investigation and the identity of the people who have not been charged.

Four of the five mandates of the Special Council Office have been mentioned in Cohen's not yet sealed documents in New York.

Howell has informed the Department of Justice that it would have to update it by the end of August to indicate whether the redacted portions of the warrants must remain sealed.

Cohen was formerly personal advocate of President Donald Trump, Executive Vice President of the Trump Organization and National Vice President of Finance of the Republican National Committee. He began serving a three-year jail sentence this month for financial crimes, election campaign violations and lying before Congress.
Cohen, formerly Loyalist of Trump, implicated the president in a secret ploy when he pleaded guilty in federal court last year. He admitted that "in coordination and under the direction of a candidate for federal office," he had prevented the disclosure of information that would have harmed Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Cohen performed or helped orchestrate payments designed to silence women who claimed to have had a relationship with Trump years before his candidacy in 2016.

In April 2018, the FBI raided the office, the hotel room and Cohen's residence in New York, and seized information including material relating to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, who claims having had sex with Trump in 2006. Trump denies having such a meeting with Daniels.

Mueller was investigating Cohen for possibly lied to banks, violated foreign laws on lobbying and money laundering, according to one of the search warrants previously made public by Manhattan federal court.

These documents, published in March before the completion of Mueller's work, revealed that the special council had asked for more information about an account opened by Cohen on behalf of the screen company that was paying Daniels, as well as about the work that was going on. He had made with foreign entities. The New York Federal Court documents also revealed that Mueller had comprehensively tracked Cohen's computer data while he was working for Trump until 2017. The judge also allowed Mueller to access the data. stored in an iCloud account.

In the New York documents, the details of the financial contributions of the women who allege the case and the resulting investigation are still under seal and will remain so for at least two months, ordered a judge Tuesday, signaling that federal prosecutors continue to investigate the Trump organization.

Cohen was finally not charged with illegal foreign lobbying or money laundering. Mueller dismissed Cohen's investigation to New York prosecutors in February 2018, who eventually charged him with several crimes, for which he pleaded guilty. The special council office later charged Cohen with lying to Congress, which helped him in Russia and obstructing judicial investigations.

Cohen had been one of Mueller's first targets in his investigation and he became one of the most important collaborators of the special council towards the end.

This story has been updated.

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