Novartis Gave $1.2 Million to Trump Lawyer Cohen’s Company

The telecommunications giant paid $200K to the shell company of Michael Cohen, personal injury lawyer and Donald Trump’s fixer, for “insights into the new administration”.

But while Avenatti attracts substantial attention and has created serious problems for the president Trump largely ignores the media-savvy attorney. The New York Times reports that he mostly operated independently from the firm.

The memo, containing highly specific dates and amounts, stated that Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian billionaire, and his cousin “routed” eight payments totalling approximately $500,000 to Cohen’s company, Essential Consultants, between January and August 2017.

Michael Cohen – the personal attorney for US President Donald Trump – arrives at Capitol Hill in Washington, US, September 19, 2017.

Adult film actress Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels speaks U.S. Federal Court with her lawyer Michael Avenatti on April 16 in NY.

Swiss drugmaker Novartis and United States telecommunications giant AT&T on Wednesday said they made payments to Cohen’s firm, Essential Consultants, in efforts to gain intelligence into the Trump administration’s thinking on issues affecting them. The objective of the payments, which predate the sanctions, and the nature of the business relationship between Vekselberg and Cohen is unclear. Mr. Avenatti has published information from these records, such as the identities of and payments made by Mr. Cohen’s business clients, such as AT&T and Novartis. Ex.

“As the contract, unfortunately, could only be terminated for cause, payments continued to be made until the contract expired by its own terms in February 2018”, Novartis said. They were right (just imagine if we were learning that the White House counsel paid off various Trump paramours), but the decision is at the root of the latest scandalous Cohen revelations.

AT&T confirmed its connection Tuesday evening. Avenatti released a document, detailing bank transactions involving Essential Consultants – a DE entity Michael Cohen had, according to the Wall Street Journal, set up for hush payments.

The questions asked of Vekselberg suggest that Mueller investigators have been examining some of Cohen’s business relationships as part of the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. “He wasn’t expecting attorney general, but he was holding out for a senior job that would have also allowed him to continue being an attack dog for the president“, a source told The Daily Beast. The telecom company wants to acquire media and entertainment company Time Warner in a deal that’s valued at almost $109 billion, including debt. Two others, Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Rep. David Cicilline of Rhode Island, wrote a letter to antitrust chief Makan Delrahim, asking if the Justice Department knew of AT&T’s payments to Cohen or any attempts to influence the merger’s outcome.

Cohen is under criminal investigation by federal prosecutors in NY for issues related to his business dealings.

“There’s not involvement of the president in any of that”, he said. It also denied that Essential did any legal or lobbying work for the company.

AT&T has acknowledged it hired a firm founded by Cohen, seeking “insights” on how the unorthodox candidate would govern as president after his 2016 upset win.

One wonders how much useful “accounting” advice Korea Aerospace Industries received for the $150,000 it paid Cohen, who reportedly owes hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes on his taxi medallions.