FBI raids Trump lawyer's office, seizes Stormy Daniels documents
New York, April 10: The FBI has raided the office of President Donald Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen and seized documents related to porn star Stormy Daniels along with other bank records, the media reported.
Cohen is a longtime ally of the President, and admitted earlier this year to setting up a limited liability company in 2016 to pay Daniels, who alleges she had an affair with Trump in 2006 that the White House has denied.
His attorney Stephen Ryan told CNN that the US Attorney's office for the Southern District of New York on Monday had executed "a series of search warrants" including at his office, and "seized the privileged communications" between Cohen and his clients.
The Monday raids included the Loew's Regency hotel where Cohen has been staying. There were approximately a dozen Federal Bureau of Investigation agents involved.
The FBI also seized emails, tax documents and business records, including communications between Trump and Cohen.
Ryan called the search "completely inappropriate and unnecessary", and said federal prosecutors had told him it stemmed partially from a referral by the office of special counsel Robert Mueller.
"I have been advised by federal prosecutors that the New York action is, in part, a referral by the Office of Special Counsel, Robert Mueller," Ryan said in the statement.
"It resulted in the unnecessary seizure of protected attorney client communications between a lawyer and his clients.
"These government tactics are also wrong because Cohen has cooperated completely with all government entities, including providing thousands of non-privileged documents to the Congress and sitting for depositions under oath."
Trump slammed the move as a "disgraceful situation" and "an attack on our country", reports CNN.
A White House official said Trump had been watching TV reports, and that the President knew about the raid before the news broke.
"This is ridiculous. This is now getting ridiculous," Trump said Monday, pointing to a "whole new level of unfairness".
Michael Avenatti, Daniels' attorney, responded to the news on Twitter, saying "an enormous amount of misplaced faith has been placed" on Cohen's shoulders.
Mueller's office and Justice Department have not yet commented on the Monday raids.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
ECI website faces outage amid vote counting in Jharkhand, Maharashtra
New Delhi: Election Commission of India’s official results website ‘results.eci.gov.in’ has reportedly experienced a technical outage on Saturday morning, at a time when India closely watches the high-stakes Maharashtra and Jharkhand assembly poll battle.
Visitors visiting the site were met with non-functional links and a generic “counting in progress” message, leaving them without updated election data. The ECI has not issued an official explanation for the disruption.
Vote counting, which began at 8 a.m. with postal ballots, is underway for 288 assembly seats in Maharashtra and 81 in Jharkhand. Early trends suggest a lead for the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance in Maharashtra, currently ahead in 141 seats, while the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) is leading in 96. In Jharkhand, the BJP-led NDA is ahead in 43 seats, while the ruling JMM-led alliance is trailing with leads in 33 constituencies.
Additionally, counting is underway for 48 assembly bypolls across 13 states and two parliamentary seats, Nanded in Maharashtra and Wayanad in Kerala.
