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Encrypted Communications Apps Failed To Protect Michael Cohen (fastcompany.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Within the detailed federal allegations against former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty earlier this week to eight charges including campaign finance violations, are multiple references to texts sent by Cohen and even a call made "through an encrypted telephone application." Cohen was apparently a fan of encrypted communications apps like WhatsApp and Signal, but those tools failed to keep his messages and calls out of sight from investigators. In June, prosecutors said in a court filing the FBI had obtained 731 pages of messages and call logs from those apps from Cohen's phones. Investigators also managed to reconstruct at least 16 pages of physically shredded documents. Those logs, judging by the charging document, appear to have helped document at least Cohen's communications with officials at the National Enquirer about allegations from porn actress Stormy Daniels -- whom Cohen allegedly paid on behalf of Trump, violating campaign finance law. It's unclear if the FBI actually broke through any layers of encryption to get the data. It's possible that Cohen, who apparently at times taped conversations, stored the conversation logs in a less-than-secure way.
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Am I mistaken? Did they get a warrant before the papers were shredded and discarded
Yes, you are mistaken. First, there was a warrant. Second, you can get the warrant post-shredding. Just because you hid the evidence (by shredding) does not make it immune to a warrant. The entire point of warrants is to pierce your expectations of privacy, but only when a judge says the government can.
Also: What kind of idiot uses a strip-shredder for anything he really wants to keep secret? Have they developed a way to reassemble crosscut shreads
The kind of idiot that decides to be a fixer for a crooked real estate developer. And yes, they have developed a way to reassemble crosscut shreds as long as the shreds are big enough. The size you get from a shredder you buy at Staples is plenty big.
If so, how do they avoid the "ransom note assembled from cut out newspaper letters" risk of reassembling fine shreads into somethig that looks coherent but is nothing like the original.
By dumping the shreds on a flatbed scanner and scanning both sides. Then having a computer re-assemble the shreds based on characters that cross more than one shred. It's just a big jigsaw puzzle with identically-shaped pieces.
Trump self-financed his campaign
No, he didn't. Here's his campaign financing: https://www.opensecrets.org/pr...
"Donald J Trump for President" is his campaign. Scroll down and you can see all the sources of funding, which was primarily campaign contributions.
He directed Cohen to pay with a check for crying out loud. He would've paid even if he wasn't running for office.
Running for office triggers a different set of rules. Don't run for office if you want to pay off your mistresses.
Even if it had been a publicly-funded campaign, see the John Edwards precedent.
John Edwards was put on trial for his campaign finance crimes. There was no precedent set, he was just acquitted by the jury.