News came out overnight that there’s a hearing this morning on the Michael Cohen searches/raids at 10:30 AM before Judge Kimba Wood at the federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan. TPM’s Allegra Kirkland is at the courthouse and will be in courtroom this morning. All that is known at this point is that the hearing relates to the Cohen raids. We don’t know more than that, though it seems logical to assume it’s an effort on the part of Cohen’s attorneys to throw out the fruits of those searches. We’ll bring you more when more details are available.

As we prepare for an avalanche of hagiography and character assassination about James Comey, I want to flag this piece I wrote last May about the ‘Comey Myth’, how it came to be and Comey’s central role in creating and cultivating it. As I argue it is in many, most ways accurate. But Comey himself is perhaps the greatest devotee and believer in the Comey myth and that’s one of the reasons why he made severally critical bad judgments in 2016.

First word coming out of the federal courthouse in Manhattan is that President Trump is personally represented by counsel as it’s hashed out whether the records seized by the FBI in its raids on Michael Cohen are protected by attorney-client privilege. More soon …

TPM’s Allegra Kirkland was in the federal courthouse this morning when lawyers for Michael Cohen and (unexpectedly) President Trump argued to suppress or at least get a first look at material seized in the raids on Monday. Here’s Allegra’s report.

The Wall Street Journal just published a stunning scoop. In 2017 Michael Cohen negotiated a $1.6 million hush deal for a major GOP fundraiser named Elliott Broidy, deputy finance chairman of the RNC. If that name rings a bell, it should. Broidy is at the center of the part of the Russia probe involving the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and international fixer and convicted pedophile George Nader. Read More

I mentioned below that the report from The Wall Street Journal about the hush agreement negotiated by Michael Cohen for Elliott Broidy, a top Trump fundraiser, is a key, new connection between the hush money payoffs and the Russia probe proper. Broidy is tied to the murky shenanigans of George Nader, with money payoffs from the Gulf states and the Russia/Seychelles back channel. But there are some key details about this agreement itself. Read More

This photo from today captures a lot.

Mueller has evidence Cohen was in Prague after all.

Expecting news from the White House shortly. Vice President Pence rushed back to his hotel in Peru, and reporters at the White House were told to gather a few minutes ago. Anticipate something from the president on Syria.

Late Update: The President will address the nation on Syria at 9 p.m. ET. Watch live:

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[ed.note: Not a certain identification yet. But based on TPM Reader tips and pointers so far, it seems highly likely that this is in fact Rotem Rosen.]

I need your help identifying someone in this photo.

Photo of Michael Cohen taken by my NY colleague Lawrence Crook- who reports that he’s sitting outside the Loews Regency now with a group of friends smoking cigars pic.twitter.com/5DzcHpOvE5

— Elizabeth Landers (@ElizLanders) April 13, 2018

Here’s an enlarged version of the photo. Read More