FBI Seizes Financial Documents Belonging to Trump’s Lawyer A Month After Sen. Ron Wyden Urges Congress to “Follow the Money”

A month ago, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden went on MSNBC's All in With Chris Hayes with a message for fellow lawmakers: "If Congress wants to 'Follow the Money,' the Senate Intelligence Committee needs to speak to Trump's money man Michael Cohen again."

Today, as the New York Times first reported, the FBI did just that.

Under orders from special counsel Robert Mueller, federal prosecutors raided the office of President Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, and seized financial documents "related to several topics including payments to a pornographic-film actress."

In February, Cohen admitted to paying Stephanie Clifford (a.k.a. Stormy Daniels) $130,000 in a private payment. Cohen has declined to say why he made the payment. Clifford says she had an affair with Trump soon after his son Barron was born in 2006.

Cohen's lawyers reportedly consider the investigation, "completely inappropriate and unnecessary." And The New York Times notes that the search "does not appear to be directly related to Mr. Mueller's investigation," regarding Russian interference in the election of 2016.

Wyden, for his part, has been advocating a "Follow the Money" approach in regards to Trump's ties to Russia for at least a year.

Related: Sen. Ron Wyden Wants Senate Investigation To Follow The Money On Trump's Russian Ties

"I'm particularly pleased that [Mueller is] following the 'follow the money' issues," Wyden said on All in With Chris last month. "Because 'follow the money' is counter-intelligence 101—that's how you compromise people."

During the March 2 interview, Wyden expressed concern that Cohen, "might not even be brought back to the Senate Intelligence Committee when we were led to believe earlier that he would be."

Ultimately, Wyden concluded, "It's on the intelligence [committee] to tell the story to the American people and we're going to do it."