A lawyer representing Michael Cohen told a federal judge on Monday that the mysterious third client of President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer is Fox News’s, Sean Hannity.
Cohen was in court on Monday as regarding the FBI raid last week where documents were seized from his office, home, and hotel room. Cohen’s legal team requested from the judge that they or a court-appointed attorney should be able to review the materials seized in the raids in order to determine whether certain documents are protected by attorney-client privilege.
Judge Kimba Wood later ordered Cohen to provide information about his clients. Cohen’s lawyers then revealed that Hannity is the mystery third client.
“I understand he doesn’t want his name out there, but that isn’t the law,” Wood said.
According to Bloomberg, Robert Balin, an attorney representing the press’ interests in the case, argued that there is “intense public interest” in the identities of Cohen’s clients.
Meanwhile, Hannity denied his interactions with Cohen, asserting that he’d never formally represented him in legal proceedings.
“I have occasionally had brief discussions with him about legal questions about which I wanted his input and perspective,” Hannity tweeted, adding that the conversations were almost exclusively about real estate.
Hannity is a regular defender of Trump on his Fox News show, and according to reports he had a dinner with the president at Mar-a-Lago recently. Trump is known to call Hannity after his show and has often praised him for his ratings.
During the raid, federal agents seized financial records, communications between Trump and Cohen as well as materials related to Cohen’s payment of two women who have alleged they had affairs with the president more than a decade ago. Cohen has already admitted paying $130,000 to adult-film star Stormy Daniels, who claims the payment was hush money meant to keep her quiet about her affair with Trump in 2006.
Last week, a report showed that Cohen helped negotiate a $1.6 million payment to a former Playboy model who claimed GOP donor Elliott Broidy impregnated her after a consensual affair. Broidy stepped down last week as deputy finance chair of the Republican National Committee.
Cohen is reportedly under investigation for bank fraud and violations of campaign finance law.
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