"Alan Dershowitz: Today is a 'very dangerous day for lawyer-client relations'" On Raid on President Trump's lawyer

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“I tell [clients] on my word of honor that what you tell me is sacrosanct,” he said. “And now they say, just based on probable cause … they can burst into the office, grab all the computers, and then give it to another FBI agent and say, 'You’re the firewall. We want you now to read all these confidential communications…”
 
I have a feeling that this may be a dangerous day for a number of lawyers and their clients. Attorney-Client privilege isn’t limitless.
 
Alan Dershowitz needs to grow a backbone, quit his whining and quit sweating it. As he has nothing to worry about if he or his client show no reason for probable cause of a crime or fraud being committed or furthered or covered up.
 
Lawyers are not allowed to engage in illegal activities, whether for themselves or for their clients. Neither are doctors and many other professionals. As Mr. Taylor pointed out, there are limits.
 
sallybutler said:
Lawyers are not allowed to engage in illegal activities, whether for themselves or for their clients. Neither are doctors and many other professionals. As Mr. Taylor pointed out, there are limits.
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I don’t know why this is so difficult of a concept for some people to grasp.
 
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I can’t help but feel Dershowitz is being disingenuous here. He’s a good lawyer, he knows this kind of thing is nothing new.
 
sallybutler said:
Lawyers are not allowed to engage in illegal activities, whether for themselves or for their clients. Neither are doctors and many other professionals. As Mr. Taylor pointed out, there are limits.
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This seems a bit overkill for what looks like, at worst, a minor campaign finance violation. It almost seems you’re arguing that a lawyer speeding to a client meeting to avoid being late has forfeited all expectation of attorney client privilege.
 
Paying someone to keep quiet is legal, so what we’d be talking about is a minor campaign law violation punishable by a fine. IOW, the campaign finance equivalent of doing 50mph in a 30mph zone.
 
As I pointed out on another thread, Cohen does have other clients. It is possible that this has nothing to do with Trump.
 
As I pointed out in the other thread, the article specifically references the payment to Daniels as a topic of interest.
 
Sy_Noe said:
Alan Dershowitz needs to grow a backbone, quit his whining and quit sweating it. As he has nothing to worry about if he or his client show no reason for probable cause of a crime or fraud being committed or furthered or covered up.
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Ah, The Ol’ “if you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to worry about excuse”. What a crock of … stuff.
 
This is a dangerous day for our government. Basically Muller is a special prosecutor whose job is to investigate the president for any and all crimes he or anyone around him may have committed. There is no evidence of any crimes but the prosecutor can obtain warrants to go through personal records to discover evidence. If any one of us had a government agent looking into us like this we’d be in deep trouble because he’d find a crime.
 
exnihilo said:
the prosecutor can obtain warrants to go through personal records to discover evidence.
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The warrants were sought by the US attorney of the Southern District of New York - a man whose was a contributor to Trump’s campaign, a former partner of Rudi Giuliani; he was appointed by Trump. Warrants of this type are rare and have involved sign off by numerous ranking officials in the DOJ; since this investigation is outside of the scope of the Mueller investigation, it would be interesting to learn if Sessions himself signed off. The warrants were obtained by with the approval of a federal judge.
 
lmachine said:
I can’t help but feel Dershowitz is being disingenuous here. He’s a good lawyer, he knows this kind of thing is nothing new.
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I always look at what lawyers say with a great deal of skepticism. After all, it is not their job to be unbiased.
 
lmachine said:
I can’t help but feel Dershowitz is being disingenuous here. He’s a good lawyer, he knows this kind of thing is nothing new.
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Why do you think he’s being disingenuous? He has been a libertarian for decades, and this is the sort of thing libertarians worry about. Liberals used to worry about it too, but in order to get Trump, they’ll forget their misgivings for now.

The reason for the attorney-client privilege is psychological; so the client will tell his attorney the truth instead of making up some story that later falls apart. In business, it’s a very big deal. Imagine some big corporation’s negotiations with another suddenly being divuleged.

I think this attack by Mueller is going to be the end of Cohen’s law practice. Trump was not his only client. The others are now going to figure the FBI has all their private information and will probably demand their files and sever connections. I think it’s pretty likely any lawyer with connections to Trump is going to lose clients. And maybe that’s part of the objective. And maybe not only lawyers.
 
Ridgerunner said:
Trump was not his only client.
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Fox’s Judge Napolitano claimed otherwise on air yesterday.
Ridgerunner said:
I think this attack by Mueller is going to be the end of Cohen’s law practice.
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Could be. In other cases of this type, involving a raid on a lawyer’s office, it was the end of the law career; the raided lawyer wound up in jail.
 
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Road-Worrier said:
This seems a bit overkill for what looks like, at worst, a minor campaign finance violation
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The idea, of course, as with breaking into Manafort’s house before dawn with guns drawn, is to terrorize. KGB stuff.
 
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