Secret's out: Sean Hannity and Trump share the same shady lawyer

The FBI raid on Trump’s “fixer” and personal attorney, Michael Cohen, has blown up on one of Trump’s biggest boosters, Fox News host Sean Hannity.

Cohen tried to shield the identity of one of his three clients in court Monday morning, claiming the client had asked Cohen not to disclose his identity and that such a disclosure was “likely to be embarrassing or detrimental to the client.”

But on Monday afternoon, Judge Kimba Wood ordered Cohen to disclose that client’s name. MSNBC anchor Katy Tur broke the news while conducting a panel that included former U.S. attorney Harry Litman, who reacted with stunned laughter.

Now that Hannity’s secret is out, his reaction to the Cohen raid makes a lot more sense. Hannity tried to downplay the raid as a “fishing expedition,” and Cohen has been a guest of Hannity’s for years without either of them disclosing the relationship.

Hannity is one of three clients Cohen represented from 2017 to 2018, and while Cohen did not reveal what legal services he performed for Hannity, we know what he did for the other two.

Cohen has already admitted to paying $130,000 in hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels, who has since gone public with details of her affair with Trump.

Cohen’s other client was Elliott Broidy, an RNC finance chair for whom Cohen also arranged a sizable hush money payment. Broidy agreed to pay $1.6 million in exchange for the silence of former Playboy model Shera Bechard, whom Broidy impregnated while having an affair.

Cohen’s own attorney has called him a “fixer” whose job is to handle a “ton of matters” like these.

Hannity is downplaying his relationship with Cohen.

“Michael never represented me in any matter,” he said Monday after the news broke. “I never retained him, I never paid legal fees to Michael … but I have occasionally had brief legal discussions with him where I wanted his input and perspective.”

But at least according to Cohen and his legal team, the relationship was significant enough that Hannity wanted it to remain a secret. Like Trump’s and Broidy’s affairs, though, that secret was destined not to be kept.