How Trump's morning rant to Fox and Friends messed with the Michael Cohen case

Michael Cohen’s case saw some big developments on Thursday, and not just in the courtroom.

As expected, a judge in New York appointed an independent referee to help decide which documents seized from Cohen, Trump’s longtime personal attorney, should be handed over to prosecutors and which should be shielded by attorney-client privilege.

But Trump threw his own curveball into the proceedings with a sprawling early-morning call-in to the cable show "Fox and Friends" — during which he made comments that had an immediate impact on the case. In fact, prosecutors slapped the relevant quotes from Trump’s "Fox and Friends" rant into their court filings literally within minutes.

It was exactly the kind of move Trump’s team tries to stop him from pulling, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman tweeted.

A short time later, Judge Kimba Wood named a so-called “special master” to review files seized by the FBI in raids on Cohen’s office, home, and hotel room earlier this month and determine whether some should be shielded from investigators via attorney-client privilege, Bloomberg reported.

Wood appointed Barbara S. Jones, 70, a longtime former judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, to the role. Jones is also a former prosecutor who previously sent mobsters to prison.

In the FBI raids, officers reportedly sought documents related to a $130,000 payment Cohen made to the porn star known as Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about an affair she says she had with Trump in 2006. They also looked for files related to a former playboy model, Karen McDougal, who’s also claimed she had an affair with Trump — and received $150,000 from the parent company of the National Enquirer.

Since then, a dispute has broken out over how those documents should be handled.

That’s because Cohen, a lawyer, claims some of the files should be covered by attorney-client privilege. But Cohen also maintains other business interests that wouldn’t be shielded. The recent wrangling has therefore been over how to decide which documents should be covered and which shouldn't.

Read: Michael Cohen will plead the Fifth in Stormy Daniels case

The question poses a key dilemma for Cohen’s legal defense. Cohen has previously claimed (and so has Trump) that Trump knew nothing about the payment he made to Stormy Daniels. But if that were true, then any documents related to that payment might be ruled to be separate from Cohen’s legal work for Trump — and therefore, not protected.

Trump himself muddied the waters on Thursday morning with his amped-up telephone call to to the morning cable show, during which he claimed Cohen had worked for him on the Stormy Daniels issue, but sought to distance himself from Cohen’s other work.

Fox host Steve Doocy asked Trump: “Mr. President, how much of your legal work was handled by Michael Cohen?”

“Well, he has a percentage of my overall legal work — a tiny, tiny little fraction,” Trump said. “He represents me, like with this crazy Stormy Daniels deal, he represented me.”

But Trump said he wasn’t connected with Cohen’s other business practices that may also be under investigation.

“Michael is a businessman,” Trump said. “He's got a business. He also practices law. I would say probably the big thing is his business, and they're looking at something having to do with his business. I have nothing to do with his business.”

Stormy Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti, immediately fired back that Trump’s statement was a “another gift from the heavens,” and a “hugely damaging admission by the president.” Because, he said, it meant the president’s earlier position that he knew nothing about the payment was a lie.

Cover image: President Trump waves to supporters from this limousine on his way to Mar-a-Lago from Palm Beach International Airport Monday, April 16. (Jose More / VWPics via AP Images)