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Sean Hannity Is Named as Client of Michael Cohen, Trump’s Lawyer
PLAY VIDEO 01:34
Sean Hannity and Michael Cohen’s History
The Fox News host Sean Hannity is friends with President Trump’s personal lawyer Michael D. Cohen, but now it appears he may also be a client, although Mr. Hannity denies it.April 16, 2018Image by Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse -- Getty Images
By Alan Feuer, Michael M. Grynbaum and John Koblin
April 16, 2018
From his Fox News pulpit, Sean Hannity has been one of the most ardent supporters of President Trump, cheering his agenda and excoriating his enemies.
He has gone from giving advice on messaging and strategy to Mr. Trump and his advisers during the 2016 campaign to dining with him at the White House and Mar-a-Lago.
Now, Mr. Hannity finds himself aligned even more closely with the president.
During a hearing at a packed courtroom in Lower Manhattan on Monday, he was named as a client of Mr. Trump’s longtime personal lawyer and fixer, Michael D. Cohen.
That revelation nudged the conservative commentator into the orbit of those who have lately come under legal scrutiny related to the investigations of Mr. Trump and his associates by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, and the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan. Both inquiries have provided fodder for Mr. Hannity’s prime-time cable show and nationally syndicated radio program.
raided Mr. Cohen’s home, office and hotel room on the morning of April 9, a move that Mr. Trump called an “attack on our country.”
In a legal filing before the hearing on Monday, Mr. Cohen said that, since 2017, he had worked as a lawyer for 10 clients, seven of whom he served by providing “strategic advice and business consulting.” The other three comprised Mr. Trump, the Republican fund-raiser Elliott Broidy and a third person who went unnamed.
The mystery was solved when Kimba M. Wood, a judge for the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, ordered that Mr. Cohen’s lawyer, Stephen Ryan, disclose the name of the client in question — who turned out to be Mr. Hannity.
posted a message on Twitter: “Michael Cohen has never represented me in any matter. I never retained him, received an invoice, or paid legal fees. I have occasionally had brief discussions with him about legal questions about which I wanted his input and perspective.”
follow-up tweet, Mr. Hannity added, “I assumed those conversations were confidential, but to be absolutely clear they never involved any matter between me and a third-party.”
The reference to a third party seemed to be an allusion to one of Mr. Cohen’s specialties: drawing up confidential settlements. The lawyer has acknowledged paying $130,000 to Stephanie Clifford, an adult-film actress known as Stormy Daniels, as part of a nondisclosure agreement to secure her silence soon before Election Day in 2016.
Last week, it came to light that Mr. Cohen had arranged for Mr. Broidy to pay $1.6 million to a former Playboy model, Shera Bechard, who became pregnant during an affair with Mr. Broidy. After the confidential deal became public, Mr. Broidy resigned from his post as a deputy finance chairman of the Republican Party.
Fox News declined to comment beyond Mr. Hannity’s statements. On his prime-time show on Monday night, Mr. Hannity seemed to suggest that he had not disclosed his link to Mr. Cohen to his network, saying, “My discussions with Michael Cohen never rose to any level that I needed to tell anyone that I was asking him questions.”
Mr. Hannity told Jim Rutenberg of The New York Times during the summer of 2016. After all, the Fox News host added, “I never claimed to be a journalist.”
As Election Day drew near, other conservatives turned their backs on Mr. Trump after the posting of the so-called “Access Hollywood” tape, during which the candidate rudely boasted of “grabbing” women by the genitals. That’s when Mr. Hannity sealed his bond with Mr. Trump by committing even more fully to him. Although conceding that Mr. Trump’s “words” were wrong, he quickly changed the subject to Bill Clinton, adding that the former president’s “actions” with women were “far worse.”
On “Hannity” on Monday night, the Fox host offered a welcome “to all you liberals in the media and across America” who do not normally tune into his show, and went on to denounce the media speculation over his link to Mr. Cohen as “absolutely insane.”
PLAY VIDEO 01:34
Sean Hannity and Michael Cohen’s History
The Fox News host Sean Hannity is friends with President Trump’s personal lawyer Michael D. Cohen, but now it appears he may also be a client, although Mr. Hannity denies it.April 16, 2018Image by Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse -- Getty Images
By Alan Feuer, Michael M. Grynbaum and John Koblin
April 16, 2018
From his Fox News pulpit, Sean Hannity has been one of the most ardent supporters of President Trump, cheering his agenda and excoriating his enemies.
He has gone from giving advice on messaging and strategy to Mr. Trump and his advisers during the 2016 campaign to dining with him at the White House and Mar-a-Lago.
Now, Mr. Hannity finds himself aligned even more closely with the president.
During a hearing at a packed courtroom in Lower Manhattan on Monday, he was named as a client of Mr. Trump’s longtime personal lawyer and fixer, Michael D. Cohen.
That revelation nudged the conservative commentator into the orbit of those who have lately come under legal scrutiny related to the investigations of Mr. Trump and his associates by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, and the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan. Both inquiries have provided fodder for Mr. Hannity’s prime-time cable show and nationally syndicated radio program.
raided Mr. Cohen’s home, office and hotel room on the morning of April 9, a move that Mr. Trump called an “attack on our country.”
In a legal filing before the hearing on Monday, Mr. Cohen said that, since 2017, he had worked as a lawyer for 10 clients, seven of whom he served by providing “strategic advice and business consulting.” The other three comprised Mr. Trump, the Republican fund-raiser Elliott Broidy and a third person who went unnamed.
The mystery was solved when Kimba M. Wood, a judge for the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, ordered that Mr. Cohen’s lawyer, Stephen Ryan, disclose the name of the client in question — who turned out to be Mr. Hannity.
posted a message on Twitter: “Michael Cohen has never represented me in any matter. I never retained him, received an invoice, or paid legal fees. I have occasionally had brief discussions with him about legal questions about which I wanted his input and perspective.”
follow-up tweet, Mr. Hannity added, “I assumed those conversations were confidential, but to be absolutely clear they never involved any matter between me and a third-party.”
The reference to a third party seemed to be an allusion to one of Mr. Cohen’s specialties: drawing up confidential settlements. The lawyer has acknowledged paying $130,000 to Stephanie Clifford, an adult-film actress known as Stormy Daniels, as part of a nondisclosure agreement to secure her silence soon before Election Day in 2016.
Last week, it came to light that Mr. Cohen had arranged for Mr. Broidy to pay $1.6 million to a former Playboy model, Shera Bechard, who became pregnant during an affair with Mr. Broidy. After the confidential deal became public, Mr. Broidy resigned from his post as a deputy finance chairman of the Republican Party.
Fox News declined to comment beyond Mr. Hannity’s statements. On his prime-time show on Monday night, Mr. Hannity seemed to suggest that he had not disclosed his link to Mr. Cohen to his network, saying, “My discussions with Michael Cohen never rose to any level that I needed to tell anyone that I was asking him questions.”
Mr. Hannity told Jim Rutenberg of The New York Times during the summer of 2016. After all, the Fox News host added, “I never claimed to be a journalist.”
As Election Day drew near, other conservatives turned their backs on Mr. Trump after the posting of the so-called “Access Hollywood” tape, during which the candidate rudely boasted of “grabbing” women by the genitals. That’s when Mr. Hannity sealed his bond with Mr. Trump by committing even more fully to him. Although conceding that Mr. Trump’s “words” were wrong, he quickly changed the subject to Bill Clinton, adding that the former president’s “actions” with women were “far worse.”
On “Hannity” on Monday night, the Fox host offered a welcome “to all you liberals in the media and across America” who do not normally tune into his show, and went on to denounce the media speculation over his link to Mr. Cohen as “absolutely insane.”
