A Monday raid on the office, home, and hotel room of President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer was not only improper, but it was an attack against the presidency as well, former prosecutor Joseph diGenova said Tuesday.
DiGenova, who nearly joined Trump’s legal team in the Russian collusion probe, said on “The Laura Ingraham Show” that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — who appointed special counsel Robert Mueller — is complicit.
“What is happening now is absolutely a coup d’état … We have a duly elected president who is being undermined every day by an illegitimate investigation,” he said. “And it is disgraceful.”
The raid, conducted on three properties used by Cohen, occurred under the direction of the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and was approved by a federal magistrate judge who signed off on the warrant. Reportedly, Mueller referred information to that office and the Department of Justice.
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Speculation has focused on a $130,000 payment that Cohen made in 2016 to porn star Stormy Daniels — part of an agreement she made to keep quiet about an alleged affair she had with Trump — and whether the payment constituted an undisclosed election contribution to the president’s 2016 election campaign.
DiGenova, who served as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia in the 1980s, said such a matter “is not worthy of a federal investigation.” He said a campaign violation, if it occurred, should be handled by the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
“It was an act of bad faith by Robert Mueller’s office, and I think it was quite remarkable in its breadth and in its execution,” he said. “I can tell you that the reaction to it has been stunning in terms of the condemnation of this type of conduct.”
“In fact, my opinion about the effort to frame Donald Trump has only gotten stronger.”
DiGenova (pictured above) drew parallels to a no-knock search warrant that Mueller’s team executed before dawn at the home of Paul Manafort, who for a time ran Trump’s presidential campaign. Mueller ended up securing an indictment of Manafort on charges related to his consulting work in Ukraine — but nothing concerning Trump or the 2016 election.
DiGenova said he never approved raiding a lawyer’s office when he was U.S. attorney. Instead, he added, he followed the more common practice of issuing subpoenas for documents.
Related: ‘Chilling Effect’ Seen in ‘Outrageous and Unprecedented’ Raid on Trump Lawyer
Raiding Cohen’s properties was an “outrageous abuse of prosecutorial power,” diGenova said. “We are watching something unfold here that is really quite remarkable.”
DiGenova noted his past public characterization of the Trump investigation as an attempt to frame him — a description that many commentators have dismissed as an ungrounded conspiracy theory. But diGenova stood by it on Monday.
“I must tell you, I have not seen one fact to dissuade me from that opinion,” he said. “In fact, my opinion about the effort to frame Donald Trump has only gotten stronger.”
PoliZette senior writer Brendan Kirby can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter.
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