Michael Avenatti, left, Stormy Daniels’ attorney, leaves federal court in NY after a hearing for Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Thursday, April 26, 2018.
Advertisement
CNN reported on Wednesday that after Trump won the White House, Cohen highlighted his proximity to the President as a selling point to potential clients.
Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders: “As you know, due to the complications of the different components of this investigation, I would refer you to the president’s outside special-or outside counsel to address those concerns”.
She also said she was not aware of any actions taken by the Trump administration to benefit the companies which made payments to Cohen.
“When we were contacted by the Special Counsel’s office regarding Michael Cohen, we cooperated fully, providing all information requested in November and December of 2017”, the company said in a written statement.
Now, of course, Cohen is at the center of a controversy involving not only possible Russian influence in US elections-via Robert Mueller’s investigation-but also payments Cohen made to porn star Stormy Daniels to reportedly stay quiet about an affair with Trump.
The Washington Post reported that the internal documents it saw specified that Cohen would provide the company advice on its merger with Time Warner. The list includes pharmaceutical giant Novartis, which has confirmed paying Cohen $1.2 million. I’m closest to the president.
On November 7, 2016, Michael Cohen was a former personal injury lawyer turned taxi medallion speculator, nondisclosure-agreement drafter, and brand-licensing negotiator. The company said it realized several months into the deal that he was not giving them anything worthwhile. “What was Michael Cohen doing for that money?”
AT&T paid a Cohen company, Essential Consultants, LLC.
“Whenever you think the Trump soap opera couldn’t get any more weird, it does”, said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen.
It alleged the funds “may have replenished the account following the ($130,000) payment to Ms Clifford”.
Still, anyone with a working moral compass and a modicum of foresight probably wouldn’t put any money into a secret shell company run by the president’s weird personal attorney and taxicab baron, who also happens to be a deputy chairman of the Republican Party’s finance committee and part of the permanent cast of The Real World: Russian Campaign Collusion.
“Get over it”, Avenatti said.
Avenatti’s legal work has come under heightened scrutiny in recent days, after he released a bombshell report about Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s financial dealings, which included a $500,000 payment from a Russian oligarch shortly after the 2016 presidential election.
According to disclosure forms, the $600,000 AT&T spent on Cohen’s services was merely a drop in the ocean – the corporation spent $16.8 million on lobbying in 2017 alone.
The company said it believed Cohen, a longtime associate of Trump, could advise the company on how the Trump administration could approach healthcare policy matters, including the Affordable Care Act. It terminated the deal after determining in a meeting with Cohen that his firm would not be able to provide the services Novartis sought.
Advertisement
Mueller and/or the prosecutors at the Southern District of NY have access to all of this, and you can bet there’s a lot more in those files they seized from his offices and home.
