AT&T Pays Michael Cohen to Get Insights on the Trump Administration

AT&T, a telecommunications giant, announced on Tuesday that it had paid Michael Cohen, the lawyer of President Donald Trump, for some “insights” about the Trump administration.

The declaration of the telecommunications giant came after a lawyer for Stormy Daniels claimed the company, drug giant Novartis, and a Russian oligarch had all made payments to the shell company of Cohen.

Meanwhile, Michael Avenatti, the lawyer of Daniels, stated that AT&T had made four separate payments of $50,000 apiece to the company of Cohen, for a total of $200,000 late last year and early this year.

Back in October 2016, created the company Essential Consultants and it was used to make a $130,000 hush-money payment to Daniels.

According to the statement of AT&T, the company of Cohen “was one of several firms we engaged in early 2017 to provide insights into understanding the new administration.”

“They did no legal or lobbying work for us, and the contract ended in December 2017,” the telecommunications giant stated.

However, AT&T did not say how much the company had paid Cohen, who was the personal lawyer of the U.S. President at that time.

AT&T, on the other hand, is in the midst of chasing an $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner. However, the U.S. Justice Department has sued to block that agreement.

In a report of Cohen’s company, the law firm of Avenatti stated that in late 2017 and early this year Novartis made four separate payments to Essential Consultants, which is totaling in almost $400,000.

“Following these payments, reports surfaced that Mr. Trump took a dinner with the incoming CEO of Novartis before Mr. Trump's speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in late January 2018,” the report of Avenatti said.

Vas Narasimhan, the incoming CEO of Novartis, was joined with a group of other companies’ executives at the dinner.

“Any agreements with Essential Consultants were entered before our current CEO taking office in February of this year and have expired,” a Novartis spokesperson stated in a statement.

According to the report of Avenatti, another company, Korea Aerospace Industries LTD, had paid Essential Consultants with $150,000 November last year.

Essential Consultants had paid Daniels $130,000 on the eve of the 2016 presidential election.

According to Daniels, the payment was in exchange for her signing an agreement that required her to remain silent about an affair she claims to have had with President Trump back in 2006.

Meanwhile, neither the White House nor Cohen had an immediate comment on the new allegations of  Avenatti about the payments to Cohen’s company.

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