The Atlantic

Trump’s Greatest Fear

It’s impossible to know what the president wants so desperately to hide, but every threat to examine his business dealings produces frantic defensive maneuvers.
Source: Bebeto Matthews / AP

It’s always been the business that worried Donald Trump. This was true during the presidential campaign, it was true during the transition, and it remains true now.

The president continues to waffle over what to do about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe—fire Mueller? Fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein?—but for the moment, he seems content with bluster. As federal prosecutors in New York circle his longtime fixer Michael Cohen, however, Trump’s legal team has sprung into action, seeking the right to review and withhold documents seized from Cohen. Meanwhile, well-sourced reporters at The New York Times and Axios both say that Trump is much more rattled by the Cohen case than by Mueller’s investigation.

For days, Trump has been fuming on Twitter about how the raid on in such a case is for a Justice Department “taint team” to review documents and determine which ones are privileged. (Privilege cannot be used to conceal a crime; it’s also unclear .) Cohen has challenged that process, first saying he should be allowed to review the documents, then asking for a special master to review the documents.

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