I am under the impression Cohen is being investigated because Mueller handed some information over to the new york federal attorney, which led to the raid.
Did Michael avenatti have anything to do with Cohens legal troubles he is in right now?
Or was it all Muellers doing?
Or do we not know?
We do not know.
It seems likely that Avenatti has shared any information that he has from Stormy Daniels with the SDNY. They may use that to tack on some campaign financing crimes, along with everything else.
But, beyond that it’s unlikely that he did much. Cohen seems to be being accused of bank fraud and tax evasion around his taxi business, which Avenatti wouldn’t have had any information about. And while I’m not sure what the exact dates were on which everything happened, I know that Cohen had a wiretap on him for a fair while before the warrant was issued, and the wiretap would have had to have been preceded by a fair amount of investigation and court petitions, all of which could have taken a few months. I doubt that, from a timing standpoint, that it would be possible for Stormy Daniels to have triggered any of that. And I don’t think that any of her information would have led to Cohen getting wiretapped.
On the other hand, Daniels’ case could conflict with that of the SDNY, so they are coordinating to keep out of each other way.
I’m not sure, and I’d be curious to know, if Avenatti can get access to any of the seized materials, if they have bearing on his case. Certainly, he can be more certain that there won’t be any destroyed materials at such a time as his case begins to move forward again and he can start requesting documents from Cohen, since he’ll just ask the SDNY for them (I presume).