What Did AT&T And Novartis Get For The Money They Paid Trump's Lawyer?

[dalton99a]

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/michael-cohen-trump-stormy-daniels-payments_us_5af24625e4b00a3224ee318e
05/09/2018 12:29 pm ET
What Did AT&T And Novartis Get For The Money They Paid Trump’s Lawyer?
The most innocent explanation of the payments to Michael Cohen’s LLC is still pretty sketchy.
By Ryan J. Reilly, Nick Visser, and Nick Baumann

WASHINGTON ― The world’s largest telecommunications company, an investment firm tied to a Russian oligarch, a pharmaceutical conglomerate and an aircraft manufacturer competing for a government contract all sent money to President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer through the same shell company he used to pay off a porn star who says she had sex with the reality television star turned commander-in-chief.

That raises a few questions. But even the most innocent explanation for the transactions — that companies were paying Trump lawyer Michael Cohen in an attempt to buy access to or influence the president — represents a form of corruption.

Here’s what we know:

AT&T said it paid Cohen’s limited liability company, Essential Consultants LLC, roughly $200,000, but claimed that Cohen did no legal or lobbying work for the telecom firm. The company, which was seeking government approval of a merger with Time Warner Inc., said the payments were for “insights” into the administration.

Columbus Nova, a New York investment firm with close ties to billionaire Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, paid Cohen’s LLC around $500,000 — which was a “consulting fee” that had nothing to do with Vekselberg, Columbus Nova’s lawyer told The New York Times.

Novartis, a pharmaceutical giant, acknowledged paying Essential Consultants LLC $100,000 per month for one year ($1.2 million total) and said that “any agreements with Essential Consultants were entered before our current CEO taking office in February of this year and have expired.” They said the payments were for “healthcare policy matters.”

A seven-page document prepared by Michael Avenatti, an attorney for Stormy Daniels, the adult film actress, said that Cohen’s company also received money from Korea Aerospace Industries. The company told Bloomberg it paid Cohen one $150,000 payment for advice on what the outlet refers to as local accounting standards. A spokesman maintained that their contract with Cohen was legal.

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[rurallib]

1. gouging the public for their products, IMHO

[Blanks]

2. Sean Hannity said he didn't give money to Cohen...

But he didn’t say Cohen didn’t give him money.

Are these clients of Cohen trying to influence right-wing news in some way too.

Nobody is talking about Hannity any more. Wasn’t Rudy revealing some really interesting financial stuff on Hannity when he caused such a stir. Last week.