-Yesterday we saw one of the most extraordinarily moments
of Donald Trump's presidency when the FBI raided the offices
of personal lawyer Michael Cohen,
and in response, Trump has completely lost his mind.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
It's hard to imagine how Donald Trump could be in
more legal jeopardy than he is right now.
Basically, Trump has more legal problems than Conor McGregor
and just as many concussions.
[ Laughter ]
And yet somehow things got much worse yesterday for Trump.
-Tonight, a dramatic FBI raid
at the New York office and hotel room
of Michael Cohen,
The President's personal attorney
who paid off adult film star Stormy Daniels for her silence
about alleged affair with Mr. Trump.
-"The New York Times" also
reporting that the FBI also
seized e-mails, tax documents,
and business records,
and that the records include
communications between
Michael Cohen,
The President's attorney,
and President Trump.
-Federal Prosecutors in Manhattan obtained
search warrants after a referral
from special counsel Robert Mueller,
who found evidence of a potential crime.
-Wow, so, just to recap,
the FBI, an organization Trump has attacked for months,
raided the office of Michael Cohen,
his longtime personal fixer,
and seized tax documents, which he has repeatedly refused
to release related to campaign finance violations
during the election involving Stormy Daniels,
the porn star he allegedly had an affair with,
on a referral from Robert Mueller,
the special counsel in the Russia investigation.
This is like the series finale of a TV show
where they try to tie all the different plot lines together.
[ Cheers and applause ]
You're watching like, "Oh!
It's Michael Cohen from season one!
What's he doing in this episode? Ohhhhh!"
If Trump ever goes on trial, they're gonna call characters
from previous episodes into the courtroom
like the last episode of "Seinfeld."
[ Laughter ]
[ As Trump ] "Oh, no, Anthony Scaramucci,
what did I do to you?"
[ Deep voice ] "No Mooch for you."
[ Laughter ]
[ Normal voice ] Of course, when news like this breaks,
we can always count on our calm, rational president
to react in a measured way,
and he once again rose to the occasion this morning
when he got up bright and early and tweeted
these reassuring words to a nation in turmoil...
[ Laughter ]
And then, less than a minute later,
he added this helpful follow-up...
[ Laughter ]
So the Feds seize Trump's communications with his lawyers,
and the next morning, Trump woke up and screamed
"Attorney-client privilege is dead!"
What is Trump's strategy here,
to act so guilty the feds will think he has to be innocent?
[ Laughter ]
You know, the insanity defense
only works after you've been arrested, right?
[ As Trump ] They can't arrest me if I'm crazy.
Quick, somebody get me a diaper I can wear as a hat.
[ Laughter, cheers, and applause ]
[ Normal voice ] Now, Michael Cohen isn't just
a peripheral player in Trump's world.
He's been Trump's loyal fixer for years,
and he's as close to Trump's inner circle
as you can possibly get.
And last month, as the controversy surrounding
the Stormy Daniels story was intensifying,
Cohen insisted that he would remain forever loyal
to his boss and that the hush payment he allegedly paid
went beyond politics. He told "Vanity Fair"...
Yeah, just a thing a friend does for a friend.
Like when your buddy forgets his wallet,
so you pay for his coffee, except instead of coffee,
it's a porn star, and instead of forgetting his wallet,
he forgot his wedding vows.
[ Laughter, cheers, and applause ]
And say what you will about Donald Trump,
but he's a man who respects and appreciates loyalty.
A friend like that deserves nothing less
than mutual admiration and devotion.
So naturally Trump did what he does
to all of his most loyal servants --
he immediately threw him under the bus.
-That's right. He said "Ask Michael Cohen."
And it looks like the FBI said, "Okay."
[ Laughter ]
Now, suffice to say the fact that federal prosecutors
obtained a warrant to raid the offices of The President's
personal attorney and seize communications
with The President is a huge deal.
It's incredibly rare and must meet a high legal burden.
While the exact details of the warrant are still unknown,
yesterday, we started to learn more about which
potential crimes investigators might be looking into.
-Wow! It's amazing how many different crimes the Trump team
has been able to cover.
You got Michael Cohen on bank fraud,
wire fraud, and campaign finance violations,
Paul Manafort on failing to register as a foreign agent,
Michael Flynn on lying to the FBI,
and Jared Kushner for, I don't know, probably using a fake ID.
[ Laughter ]
[ High-pitched, raspy voice ] Hi, I'm 21.
I work at the White House.
I'd like to buy some beer, please.
Do you have to buy six, or can you get one or two?
[ Normal voice ] And here's a fun fact I learned yesterday --
Michael Cohen's office, the one that was raided
by the FBI, is actually located at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.
That's the building we are in right now,
The one we tape this show in every day.
I feel like Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz."
Everything I was looking for was right there with me all along.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Michael Cohen was very much the keeper
of Trump's most closely held secrets,
and the fact that FBI raided his office
and seized his communications with Trump is being taken
by outside lawyers as a sign
of just how serious the investigation is.
One lawyer told "The Washington Post"...
And if there's anyone who knows the worst about Trump,
it's his barber.
[ Laughter ]
[ Cheers and applause ]
Cohen may very well know more about Donald Trump
than any other being on the planet,
which might explain why in his first comments to the media
yesterday after the story broke,
Trump seemed to come totally unglued.
He was supposed to meet with his national security team
to discuss Syria,
but completely unprompted,
he began the meeting
by attacking the FBI.
-So, I just heard that they
broke into the office of
one of my personal attorneys.
-They broke in? They're the FBI.
They had a search warrant.
That's like waking up from surgery and telling your doctor,
"You stole my appendix!"
Trump once again aired one of his long-simmering grievances,
his anger at Attorney General Jeff Sessions,
who recused himself from the Russia investigation
because he has misled Congress
and because he had been a part
of the campaign that was being investigated.
Trump wants someone in charge who will exert influence
over the probe and potentially shut it down,
and he made that clear again yesterday.
-The Attorney General made
a terrible mistake when
he did this and when he recused
himself, or he should have
certainly let us know if he was
going to recuse himself
and would have put a different
Attorney General in.
-I shudder to imagine who else Trump would have named
as Attorney General --
Chris Christie, Rudy Giuliani,
an Amazon Echo that only watches Fox News.
-[ Amazon Echo voice] Hillary. Obama. Deep state. Witch hunt.
E-mails. E-mails. E-mails. E-mails. E-mails. E-mails.
E-mails. E-mails. E-mails. E-mails.
-Heeey!
Trump was so panicked and flustered when he spoke
to the media that he just kept mindlessly repeating
the same words over and over.
-It's a disgraceful situation.
-It's a disgrace.
It's frankly a real disgrace.
I think it's a disgrace.
It's a disgrace. It's a disgrace.
I think it's a disgrace.
I think it's disgraceful.
It's a disgrace.
[ Laughter ]
-Hey, man, if you are not
going to bother to read the Constitution,
could you at least check out a thesaurus?
[ Laughter ]
[ As Trump ] You look at what's going on, it's...
ignominious.
[ Normal voice ] Oh. Okay.
We'll give you credit for that.
One of the most unsettling things about Trump's comments
was they were made at a meeting where Trump was supposed
to be deciding whether to use military force against Syria.
In fact, sitting next to him
was his new National Security Advisor John Bolton.
And Trump noted the awkward timing of his arrival.
-John, I want to thank you very much.
This is gonna be a lot of work.
Interesting day. He picked today
as his first day, so, Generals,
I think he picked the right day.
-No, he didn't.
[ Laughter ]
This is like starting your job
at Enron on the day of the crash.
"Oh, you must be the new guy. Here, grab a shredder."
[ Laughter ]
This is one of the most consequential
and potentially most perilous moments in the Trump presidency.
One of his closest confidants is in the cross hairs of the FBI,
and he's openly threatening to shut down
the special counsel's investigation.
And if that happens, I can think of at least one word
I'd use to describe the situation.
-It's a disgrace.
Disgrace. Disgrace.
-This has been "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪