That's a good point, but for the purposes of discussion, just replace the bolded with anything that could be privileged. What I'm really getting at is, what does the team that goes through it do with privileged information? Bury it and never act on it at all? Do they have any recourse to still try to investigate it?

It seems like a complex issue, where legally they probably should not be allowed to do anything... but morally, they know what they know and you can't un-ring that bell.

Yeah there seems to be a lot of confusion here. Bharara and another guy on Twitter referred to SDNY as potentially being the clean team, but it seems odd that the "dirty team" would only be getting the clean stuff and would then continue prosecuting the case.

I did some Googling and found other articles reversing the terms, so I'm pretty confused.

I'm not sure how Mueller's team could have been the one to separate it out if the SDNY team carried out the raid... Like, they have to look at what they're collecting, right?

I think that's the wet team.

Yeah I'm probably confused due to the software version of this

That's awesome that LFS got Admo to post here.

I see this out there on the webs:

In before Keed wants answers to "How clean is clean?"

Thanks m_reed, that clears it up. Seems like confusing terminology that they are called EITHER a "taint team" or a "clean team", particularly when a book on police prosecutions refers to the other team as the clean team, but whatever. It seems like "clean team" is being used in the sense of "cleanup team".

SDNY could have both the clean and dirty teams. It is not required to be different agencies. I suspect most commonly it is not.

From what I have read on the subject, the clean team is simply a group of people not involved in the active investigation / prosecution. Certainly you could have multiple dirty teams so SDNY and Mueller could receive the information.

The Trump WH could definitely use a fresh coat of taint.

My inner 14 year old can't take "taint team" seriously.

M_reed beat me to it, assuming you got it from the replies to Preet's tweet?

Preet also used those two terms interchangeably, and he's a pretty effing smart lawyer, so I'll take his word for it.

Apparently there are two possibilities here, based on the reporting out there:

1. Mueller referred an unrelated case to the SDNY, and they raided... They would then likely set up their own separate clean team and prosecution team to handle the materials.

2. Mueller had the SDNY carry out the raid as his clean team.

It's also possible, I think, that both of these things are true... Below is a quote from Cohen's attorney in the Vanity Fair article:

"I have been advised by federal prosecutors that the New York action is, in part, a referral by the Office of Special Counsel, Robert Mueller."

In part.

That's neither here nor there.

So long story short, Cohen will probably get disbarred, face possible prison time, not get reimbursed $130K from Trump for paying a porn star to **** him, and become the laughingstock of law schools for generations to come. Sweet gig bro!

I just googled "attorney client privilege clean and dirty team" or something similar.

I am probably now a bit over qualified to join the trump legal team.

Thinking about it a bit more, isn't it very possible and perhaps most likely that Mueller has evidence on Cohen that warrants a search, AND referred the Stormy Daniels stuff to SDNY, thus asking SDNY to carry out the raid and set up a clean team which will then funnel relevant Russia-related stuff to Mueller and relevant Stormy-related stuff to SDNY, while protecting attorney client privilege?

Like, that's a hell of a raid to carry out over JUST the Stormy Daniels stuff... But, the fact that the federal prosecutors in NY told Cohen's lawyer it was a referral by Mueller is still significant.

My non-lawyer guess is: all of the above.

Expect a desperate call from either John Miller or David Dennison sometime this week.

Ah, okay, someone had posted a screen shot of it several replies down from Preet's reply.

Don't let it go to your head.

The pros weigh in.

Another thing, they did not only search Cohen's home and office, but also a hotel where he's been staying. This probably took a week to set up, and they had to have eyes on Cohen to know about the hotel. They also had to have a separate basis to search it, and they had to get permissions from DC and likely brief the A-C issues in the warrant application (I don't know much about search warrants, but they would have had to study up and expect push-back from the judge.) Seems like more than just the Stormy D issue.

Trump’s company is now threatening the president of Panama
The Trump Organization demanded that he intervene in a private business dispute — or pay the consequences.
https://www.vox.com/world/2018/4/9/1...flict-interest

It gives me some small bit of satisfaction knowing trump will get no sleep tonight.

And then there's the realization trump will be completely unhinged and going on no sleep tomorrow, and has the power to end humanity. And my bit of satisfaction turns to sheer terror.

Reddit trumpkins losing their minds. Going hard with the “well once someone Hillary knew died so leave trump alone!!”

Taking their marching orders from Hannity. His argument was "What an insane double standard of justice we have. Hillary Clinton's lawyer never got their office raided!"

Keed’s just wants some proof that Cohen did anything wrong. Raids by anonymous FBI agents aren’t proof!

Yeah the hotel being included seems like a big deal... That means they would need probable cause that he had evidence there, right? So not only did they have to know that he was staying there, they had to have reason to believe that they would find evidence there... Since it's a hotel, it's a reasonable guess that he isn't staying there long-term (I think someone on the news mentioned home repairs or something?).

This seems significant, because Cohen reportedly met with Trump on 3/24, the night before the Stormy Daniels interview aired on 60 Minutes... Also in early March, I believe. So that's two meetings within the last month leading up to this search, and they had to be looking for something in particular in that hotel... There's at least a chance it goes back to those meetings with Trump.