The payment to the pornographic film actress, Stephanie Clifford, who is known as Stormy Daniels, is only one of many topics being investigated, according to a person briefed on the search. The F.B.I. also seized emails, tax documents and business records, the person said. Agents raided space Mr. Cohen uses in the Rockefeller Center office of the law firm Squire Patton Boggs, as well as a room Mr. Cohen is staying in at the Loews Regency Hotel on Park Avenue while his apartment is under renovation, the person said. 
 
 [Read our February 2018 profile of Michael D. Cohen] 
 
 To obtain a search warrant, prosecutors must convince a federal judge that agents are likely to discover evidence of criminal activity. 
 
 The searches are a significant intrusion by prosecutors into the dealings of one of Mr. Trump’s closest confidants, and they pose a dilemma for Mr. Trump. He has dismissed Mr. Mueller’s investigation as a “witch hunt,” but these warrants were obtained by an unrelated group of prosecutors. The searches required prior consultation with senior members of Mr. Trump’s own Justice Department. 
 
 Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen, however, regarded the searches as an effort by Mr. Mueller to use New York’s prosecutors as his proxy, according to two people close to the men. 
 
 The searches open a new front for the Justice Department in its scrutiny of Mr. Trump and his associates: His longtime lawyer is being investigated in Manhattan; his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is facing scrutiny by prosecutors in Brooklyn; his former campaign chairman is under indictment; his former national security adviser has pleaded guilty to lying; and a pair of former campaign aides are cooperating with Mr. Mueller. Mr. Mueller, meanwhile, wants to interview Mr. Trump about possible obstruction of justice. 
 
 It is not clear what Mr. Mueller saw that made him refer the matter to other prosecutors. But the searches show that Mr. Mueller does not believe that he has the authority to investigate all manner of allegations against everyone in Mr. Trump’s orbit. That is significant because lawyers for Paul Manafort, a campaign chairman for Mr. Trump who was indicted on money laundering, tax and foreign lobbying charges, have challenged Mr. Mueller’s mandate as overly broad. 

 FILE - In this Sept. 19, 2017 file photo, President Donald Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen appears in front of members of the media after a closed door meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this Sept. 19, 2017 file photo, President Donald Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen appears in front of members of the media after a closed door meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill, in Washington. Federal agents carrying court-authorized search warrants have... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this Sept. 19, 2017 file photo, President Donald Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen appears in front of members of the media after a closed door meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill, in Washington. Federal agents carrying court-authorized search warrants have... (Associated Press) FILE - In this Sept. 19, 2017 file photo, President Donald Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen appears in front of members of the media after a closed door meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee... (Associated Press) 
 
 WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal agents armed with search warrants have seized documents from President Donald Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen, a defense lawyer said Monday. 
 
 The raid on Cohen's office was done by the U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan and was based, in part, on a referral from special counsel Robert Mueller, according to Cohen's lawyer, Stephen Ryan. 
 
 "The decision by the U.S. Attorney's Office in New York to conduct their investigation using search warrants is completely inappropriate and unnecessary," Ryan said in a statement. "It resulted in the unnecessary seizure of protected attorney client communications between a lawyer and his clients." 
 
 Ryan did not elaborate on the documents that were taken from Cohen's office. 
 
 Cohen is Trump's longtime personal lawyer. He has been under heavy public scrutiny in recent months for his payment of $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels, who claims to have had an affair with Trump in the mid-2000s. 
 
 The New York Times first reported on the raid.
– Federal agents armed with search warrants have seized documents from President Donald Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen, a defense lawyer said Monday. The raid on Cohen's office was done by the US Attorney's office in Manhattan and was based, in part, on a referral from special counsel Robert Mueller, according to Cohen's lawyer, Stephen Ryan. "The decision by the US Attorney's Office in New York to conduct their investigation using search warrants is completely inappropriate and unnecessary," Ryan said in a statement. "It resulted in the unnecessary seizure of protected attorney client communications between a lawyer and his clients." Ryan did not elaborate on the documents that were taken from Cohen's office, the AP reports. Cohen is Trump's longtime personal lawyer. He has been under heavy public scrutiny in recent months for his payment of $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels, who claims to have had an affair with Trump in the mid-2000s. The New York Times, which first reported on the raid, reports some of the documents seized had to do with the payment to Daniels. But its source says that is "only one of many topics being investigated" and that emails, tax documents, business records, and communications between Cohen and Trump were also taken. Mueller is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election, and Ryan said Cohen has given congressional investigators thousands of documents related to that investigation.