The raid on Trump's lawyer is indefensible and counter productive

Bert Peterson:

If Special Counsel Robert Mueller believed he had actionable grounds to suspect Pres. Trump of some crime that Mueller was authorized to investigate, he should have raided Trump's home and offices, not the offices of Trump's attorney, Michael Cohen.  When Mueller seized Cohen's records, he was seizing privileged information between a lawyer and not only his one client, Donald Trump, but also such privileged information from Cohen and all his clients.  Mueller was not only doing potentially serious damage to Cohen's profession, but also violating a bedrock principle – client-attorney confidentiality – on which our legal system stands.  When Pres. Trump said that this is an attack on everything we stand for, he was not kidding. 

Some have argued that Robert Mueller should be fired for this.  It's possible, however, if not likely, that such a dismissal is exactly what Mueller is seeking, for it would eliminate the need to produce any incriminating evidence against Trump.  It would instead – to a ready, eager and potentially violent audience – lend itself to the perception that there actually was such evidence, and that the supposed evidence, and not the raids against Trump's associates, was the real reason for this dismissal.  Indeed, if Mueller actually has no such evidence, then – if he is unprincipled – it is a likely course of action to take.

If that is not the reason, then why was Cohen, who was cooperating with Mueller's investigation, raided?  Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was also cooperating and was also raided.  Mueller's investigators say it was because they had "high confidence" that neither man could be trusted not to move evidence outside their jurisdiction.  But isn't that true for any guilty party under investigation?  (And isn't a belief in the party's guilt the reason for an investigation to begin with?)  The only distinguishing feature here is that the investigators weren't sure exactly what they thought Cohen was guilty of.  Hush money to Stormy Daniels – which is legal?  This justifies an FBI raid?  Are you kidding?

Alan Dershowitz (at 2:30) suggests that, seeing no benefit from cooperation, others under investigation will stop cooperating.  But that would a deterrent to Mueller only if he thought there was some evidence to be gained from it.  If not, if his real purpose was simply to punish association with Trump, and so force his own firing, then Mueller will welcome any resistance, as it will make his punitive measures easier to (falsely) justify.

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There is more.

Dershowitz is right.  There is no advantage to cooperating with Mueller.  He is still going to be a bull in a china shop with their records and rights.  I can see where others he is investigating would take a scorched earth approach to dealing with him at this point.  The pretext for the raid on Cohen is absurd.  It would have been improper for the hush money payments to be paid by the campaign.