Federal prosecutors have reconstructed about 16 pages of shredded documents as part of material seized in raids involving President Trump’s longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen earlier this year.
A court filing submitted Friday to the judge in the Southern District of New York who is overseeing the files seized in the April raids states that the documents have been reconstructed and produced for the first time.
{mosads}Prosecutors also announced that FBI agents had recovered more than 700 pages of encrypted messages between Cohen and other recipients from the encrypted messaging apps WhatsApp and Signal.
A second Blackberry cellphone used by Cohen is also under investigation but has not yet yielded its contents, according to the court filling.
“While the FBI cannot, therefore, estimate the volume of data on this latter device, the BlackBerry produced yesterday contains approximately 315 megabytes of data,” prosecutors wrote.
The filing came Friday as the president distanced himself from Cohen, telling reporters that he hasn’t spoken to Cohen “in a long time.”
“No, he’s not my lawyer anymore, but I always liked Michael. And he’s a good person,” Trump said.
Cohen is reportedly under investigation for allegedly violating federal disclosure laws by working as a lobbyist following the 2016 presidential election, as well as for possible bank fraud and campaign finance violations.
He has reportedly told friends that he expects to be arrested soon, Vanity Fair has reported this week, but Cohen has denied those reports publicly.
“If anyone can blow up Trump, it’s him,” a former White House official said in an interview with Vanity Fair this week.