Attorney-Client Privilege

Floor Speech

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Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, on this day, as a lawyer and as a Congressman, I want to express my appreciation for the Department of Justice, the FBI, Mr. Mueller, Mr. Rosenstein, Mr. Wray, and others.

The attorneys in the Justice Department are among the best in the country, and Mr. Mueller and Mr. Rosenstein are in that group. The FBI have the finest law enforcement people in our country, and Mr. Wray heads that office up.

Besides being outstanding jurists, men of rectitude, and probity, what else do Mr. Wray, Mr. Rosenstein, and Mr. Mueller have in common? They are all Republicans, and they have all been attacked by our President.

Our President said, when the warrant was issued on his attorney's office for his materials, that that was an attack on our country. In my opinion, that statement and the attacks on our Justice Department and FBI, and on Mr. Rosenstein and Mr. Mueller and Mr. Wray, those were attacks on our country.

When one undermines the Justice Department and the FBI and, basically, people working in the Federal Government to protect us and see that our laws are carried out in an appropriate manner and that the rule of law, which this country is respected for all around the world, is meted out in evenhanded fashion, that is an attack on the fundamental principles of the United States of America.

Mr. Speaker, I resent that suggestion. The fact is Mr. Rosenstein showed great bravery in seeing--as we say in jury charges, ``going where truth dictated and justice demanded''--in seeing that that warrant was issued. They did it on the basis of probable cause and information that they had to have surveillance of Mr. Cohen. They had to have probable cause to even have surveillance. And then to go through--knowing this man was the attorney for the President--and authorize the warrant and to know his job was on the line and his neck was on the line showed great courage, something we all in America should respect and hold up as an admirable quality in a man who exhibits the best characteristics of our citizenry.

Then Mr. Rosenstein, a learned attorney who didn't feel that attorney-client privilege was being infringed upon, sent the case to the Southern District of New York, where other lawyers who were trained took the case to a judge, who was also learned in the law, who said the warrant should issue.

Attorney-client privilege is alive and is being dealt with in the proper fashion in Judge Wood's courtroom. She is properly seeing to it that it is respected, but that information that is not that of an attorney-client privilege will be revealed to the American public.

For some reason, a lot of people today who normally are talking about the Second Amendment are talking about attorney-client privilege like it is the biggest legal principle in our country's fabric. What is more important than anything--and attorney-client privilege is being respected--is the information that has been garnered through that search warrant that could show the possibility of crimes being committed by the President of the United States of America. There is nothing more important to be seen, and attorney-client privilege is nothing compared to that. Why people are concerned about that and not the information that they are trying to keep quiet astonishes me.

We need a transparent President. We need a President who pays his taxes and reveals them to the American public and who doesn't try to squash the Justice Department, the FBI, and means of people of probity and rectitude and character.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Rosenstein, Mr. Mueller, Mr. Wray, the Justice Department, and FBI officials.

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