Michael Cohen May Be Getting Ready to Flip

By Emily Jane Fox, Vanity Fair

14 June 18

After his current attorneys squabbled with the Trump Organization over legal fees, Cohen is close to hiring a new attorney with ties to the Southern District of New York. “As far as a criminal case going forward in the Southern District, he’s going to want a New York attorney who came from the Southern District,” says one friend.

or weeks, a team of 15 attorneys and two data specialists have been working for Michael Cohen to comb through the millions of documents seized by federal agents as part of the Southern District of New York’s wide-ranging investigation into the longtime Trump Organization lawyer. Bearing down on a Friday deadline to finish designating which documents they believe are protected by attorney-client privilege, the team from McDermott, Will & Emery has been working around the clock, with Cohen spending up to 10 hours a day with his attorneys and associates, some of whom have been sleeping on couches in the firm’s offices. That work, however, is as costly as it is time-consuming. When the document review is complete, according to a person familiar with the situation, Cohen is expected to part ways with McDermott, Will & Emery, jettisoning his lead attorney, Stephen Ryan; and Todd Harrison, a fellow partner at the firm.

People close to Cohen have described the shake-up as an anticipated strategic decision. “Steve’s firm was perfect for this document review and not a lot firms have the wherewithal for that. They wanted to get through the document review because they were very equipped to handle it,” one adviser and longtime friend of Cohen told me on Wednesday. “But as far as a criminal case going forward in the Southern District, he’s going to want a New York attorney who came from the Southern District. If there is an indictment in the Southern District, there is no way Steve Ryan was going to handle it. This is something that’s been in the works for a while, and who knows what’s going to happen next, but Steve won’t be the one handling it.”

The switch reflects the changing nature of Cohen’s case moving forward, the friend suggested. With privilege designations coming to a close, Cohen has been in talks with lawyers who have close ties to the Manhattan U.S. attorneys office. He is close to hiring one of them, according to three people familiar with the situation.

The breakup was also spurred by a disagreement over payment, and how much the Trump Organization was expected to foot on Cohen’s behalf, according to two sources with knowledge of the dispute. For a decade, Cohen represented Donald Trump as part of the Trump Organization, including when he made a hush-money payment to adult-film star Stormy Daniels. Records related to that payment, along with other activities involving Cohen’s dealings with Trump and the Trump Organization, were among the documents seized by federal agents in April, according to two people familiar with the search warrant. (Ryan and Harrison did not respond to a request for comment, nor did an attorney for the Trump Organization. Cohen did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

While media reports have fanned speculation that Cohen will soon be arrested, the sources close to Cohen emphasized that he has not been charged, nor has he sat down with prosecutors. This period of limbo has weighed considerably on Cohen, who had already felt isolated by Trump and his inner circle in Washington, who have distanced themselves from him. He was also hurt by the lack of support he received from the Trump family. Earlier this year, he heard that Eric Trump was telling associates that he felt Cohen was sloppy in the way he handled the Daniels agreement, which rankled Cohen. “I feel like Don Quixote,” he has said to people close to him, intimating that he seeking justice. “It’s ruining my children’s lives. It’s ruining my wife’s life. It’s worse than a pit in your stomach.”

The legal fight could intensify should Cohen decide to cooperate with authorities, particularly if he plans to turn over information or documents that Trump’s lawyers deem privileged. Cohen, who has already been strapped by a year of legal bills, has told people close to him that a fight against the president could be crippling. As the news broke around his legal woes, Cohen was meeting with another set of attorneys—those representing him in the civil case against Daniels in California, according to two people.