WASHINGTON – The Federal Bureau of Investigation on Monday raided theoffices and home of U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer MichaelCohen, law enforcement sources said, in a dramatic new development in aseries of probes involving close Trump associates.

Cohen’s lawyer, Stephen M. Ryan, said that U.S. prosecutors conducted asearch that was partly a referral by the Office of Special Counsel, RobertMueller.

Mueller is investigating whether members of Trump’s 2016 campaign colludedwith Russia during the U.S. presidential election. Trump has called theprobe a “witch hunt” and denied any collusion.

The raid could increase legal pressure on the president, because itinvolves the records of his longtime attorney and indicates a second centerof investigations in Manhattan, alongside Mueller’s Washington-based probe.

Cohen has been at the center of a controversy over a $130,000 payment hehas admitted making shortly before the 2016 election to porn star StormyDaniels, who has said that she had sex once with Trump in 2006 and was paidto keep quiet about it.

Trump reacted with unusually harsh language to news of the raid.

“It’s a disgraceful situation. It’s a total witch hunt. I’ve been saying itfor a long time,” Trump said at the opening of a meeting with military andnational security advisers to discuss Syria.