Novartis Paid Cohen $1.2 Million For Work It Says He Was 'Unable' To Do

[deminks]

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/drugmaker-novartis-says-it-paid-cohen-has-cooperated-with-muellers-team

The pharmaceutical company Novartis acknowledged Wednesday that it paid Trump fixer Michael Cohen more than $1 million starting last year and that the company has cooperated with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators.

“In February 2017, shortly after the election of President Trump, Novartis entered into a one year agreement with Essential Consultants,” Novartis said in a statement Wednesday, it’s second statement regarding its agreement with Cohen. “With the recent change in administration, Novartis believed that Michael Cohen could advise the company as to how the Trump administration might approach certain US healthcare policy matters, including the Affordable Care Act.”

USA Today, reporting on the initial statement Novartis made Tuesday, said Novartis “paid Trump attorney Michael Cohen nearly $400,000 from late 2017 to early 2018.”

“The agreement was for a term of one year, and paid Essential Consultants 100,000 USD per month,” Novartis said in its second statement.

(snip)

But, the statement continued, “[a]s 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.”

(end snip)

[BigmanPigman]

1. Ali Velshi is covering all of this on MSNBC right now.

He is going over the whole flow chart and who Mueller has interviewed. He explains things very well.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016206196

[malaise]

2. Well there is this

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-25/here-s-who-s-having-dinner-with-trump-at-davos
<snip>
President Trump is meeting with a group of CEOs at Davos. Here’s the list, obtained by Bloomberg:

U.S. delegation:
President Donald J. Trump
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson
DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen
General H.R. McMaster
Gary Cohn
Business leaders:
Kasper Rorsted, Adidas
Joe Kaeser, Siemens AG
Heinrich Hiesinger, Thyssenkrupp AG
Eldar Saetre, Statoil ASA
Mark Schneider, Nestle SA
Vas Narasimhan, Novartis AG
Mark Tucker, HSBC
Patrick Pouyanne, Total SA
Carlos Brito, Anheuser-Busch InBev NV
Rajeev Suri, Nokia Corporation
Punit Renjen, Deloitte
Martin Lundstedt, AB Volvo
Werner Baumann, Bayer AG
Bill McDermott, SAP SE
Ulrich Spiesshofer, ABB Ltd

(Corrects errant spellings of Brito, Lundstedt.)

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. AT&T used the same vague language in their contract...

"advise the company as to how the Trump administration might ......"

gee, I wonder how the shareholders feel about all that money being spent.

[genxlib]

4. I do a lot of work with local Governments

And small time politicians go to jail for this shit all the time. The only difference is the amount of money is larger.

[gratuitous]

5. Wouldn't you like a peek at that contract?

What kind of contract did Novartis draw up with Cohen that required them to keep paying Cohen without any specific performance? If Novartis is to be believed, they just kept coughing up another 100 grand every month for . . . well, what? Cohen didn't do anything for them, continued to do nothing, and yet they kept paying. Cohen never contacted Novartis and said, "You know what? I don't feel right about taking $100,000 every month when you aren't asking me to do anything. Why don't we both just walk away?" You know, like an ethical person might do?