We begin today’s roundup with analysis by Laura Coates at CNN of Michael Cohen’s disclosure that FOX host Sean Hannity was a client:
Fox host Sean Hannity just helped the government's case against President Donald Trump's personal attorney, Michael Cohen, tremendously. Even irony itself was not prepared for that development. [...]
Hannity's denial [that he retained Cohen] fatally undermined any credible claim by Cohen that their communications were protected from disclosure by the attorney client privilege. The privilege extends to only those private conversations that take place within an established attorney-client relationship, and even then, those conversations must specifically pertain to legal advice. The privilege does not extend to conversations simply because one of its participants happens to be an attorney.
Michael Calderone at Politico:
Sean Hannity has wavered over the years on whether he is a journalist or conservative activist, but ethics specialists say that whichever hat the Fox News host was wearing last week when he condemned the FBI raid on attorney Michael Cohen’s office, he should have disclosed that he’s a client of Cohen’s.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re a newspaper reporter or an opinion journalist,” said Indira Lakshmanan, the journalism ethics chair at the Poynter Institute. “If you want to maintain credibility with an audience, and be honest with them, you have to disclose all facts.”