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Judge in Cohen case tells Stormy Daniels' lawyer to get off TV

“You will not be permitted to use this court as a platform for anything.”

Tone down the “publicity tour” if you want to participate in this case.

That’s what Judge Kimba Wood told Michael Avenatti in Manhattan federal court Wednesday at the latest hearing on documents seized from Michael Cohen’s premises.

The lawyer for Stormy Daniels, the porn star paid by Cohen to keep quiet about her alleged affair with Donald Trump, has been involved because some of the documents, including audio records, reportedly relate to his client. But Wood said if Avenatti wants to take part in the dispute with the president’s longtime personal attorney, he has to stop spending so much time on TV — he appeared nearly 150 times from March 7 to May 15 talking about the case.

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“You would have to change your conduct,” Wood said. “You will not be permitted to use this court as a platform for anything.”

Avenatti immediately withdrew his request to participate in the case after Wednesday’s hearing, but Stormy Daniels’ request to be an “intervenor,” a formal party in the case, is still pending.

Read: What Michael Cohen knows about Trump, Russia and Stormy Daniels

Cohen is challenging the FBI’s seizure of tens of thousands of documents from him during a raid on his office, hotel and home in early April; Trump's longtime"fixer" is reportedly under investigation for bank fraud and campaign finance violations. His team of lawyers has parsed through around 1,300,000 of 3,700,000 seized documents given to them by the U.S. Attorney’s office so far, they said Wednesday. They are looking for documents that contain communications between Cohen and any clients, and so far his and Trump's lawyers have ID’d 252 that they think are protected by attorney-client privilege — meaning they can be kept from investigators unless they contain direct evidence of criminality.

Wood said the parties have until June 15 to review the documents, and any docs remaining after that will be reviewed by a taint team.

Besides the scolding from the judge, Avenatti faced harsh criticism from Cohen and President Donald Trump’s attorneys in court Wednesday over his leaking accusation: Avenatti accused Cohen of leaking an audio recording of Cohen’s conversation with Daniels’ former attorney in which the two discussed the 2016 hush money, paid just a few weeks before the election. So far no outlet has reported on any leaked recording.

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Cohen’s lawyer Stephen Ryan denied leaking the audio file and said any recordings are “under lock and key” at his firm’s office. Ryan laid into Avenatti, calling his conduct malicious and unprecedented. Ryan criticized Avenatti’s decision to publish a memo on Twitter earlier this month that showed Cohen received huge sums of money in early 2017 from three corporations, including AT&T, and Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg.

Read: Why Trump cannot stop the investigation of Michael Cohen

“What Mr. Avenatti did in releasing those records was reckless,” Ryan said. “It was a premeditated drive-by shooting of my clients’ rights.”

Trump’s lawyer, Joanne Hendon, said she agreed with Ryan’s concerns, and went a step further: she alleged that Avenatti had lied to the judge when he said that his firm, currently bankrupt, had never represented Daniels. Hendon presented the judge with email exchanges between people from the firm and Trump’s lawyers as part of Daniels’ two defamation lawsuits against the president, implying the firm had in fact represented her.

Wood conceded that she has no control over Avenatti’s conduct, but warned that his smears of Cohen on TV and Twitter may influence potential jurors and impact the case down the line if prosecutors decide to charge Cohen.

Read: What you need to know about Robert Khuzami, the prosecutor going after Michael Cohen

"This conduct is inimical to eventually giving Mr. Cohen a fair trial,” she said.

Cover image: Michael Avenatti, attorney for Stormy Daniels, talks to reporters as he leaves court in New York, Wednesday, May 30, 2018. A New York judge says lawyers for President Donald Trump's personal lawyer and Trump have until June 15 to make attorney-client privilege claims over data seized in April raids. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)