Telecommunications giant AT&T said it has paid President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen for “insights” on the Trump administration.
The disclosure came after a lawyer for porn star Stormy Daniels said AT&T had paid Cohen a total of $200,000 in four separate installments.
Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti, also said that hush-money paid Daniels by Cohen may have been reimbursed by a payment to Cohen from a Russian oligarch with ties to Vladimir Putin.
Telecommunications giant AT&T said Tuesday night that it had paid President Donald Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen for “insights” about the Trump administration.
AT&T’s admission came after a lawyer for porn star Stormy Daniels claimed the company, drug giant Novartis and a Russian oligarch had all made payments to Cohen’s shell company.
Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti, said AT&T had made four separate payments of $50,000 apiece to Cohen’s company, for a total of $200,000 in late 2017 and into early 2018.
That company, Essential Consultants, was created by Cohen in October 2016 and soon after was used to make a $130,000 hush-money payment to Daniels.
In a prepared statement to CNBC, AT&T said Cohen’s company “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,” AT&T said.
The company did not say how much it had paid Cohen, who was the president’s personal lawyer at the time.
AT&T is in the midst of pursuing an $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner. The U.S. Justice Department has sued to block that deal.
In a report on Cohen’s company, Avenatti’s law firm said that Novartis in late 2017 and early 2018 made four separate payments to Essential Consultants totaling nearly $400,000.