Donald Trump’s longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen was paid millions of dollars in consulting fees by corporate clients, but never discussed those clients with the president, Trump’s new lawyer said Friday.
“The president had no knowledge of it,” Rudy Giuliani told HuffPost in an interview.
Cohen received $600,000 from AT&T, $1.2 million from Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis and $500,000 from an investment bank affiliated with a Russian oligarch, all following Trump’s unexpected election win in 2016.
Giuliani said Cohen’s business relationships did not contradict Trump’s campaign promises to end “pay-to-play” schemes and to “drain the swamp” because Cohen did not get for his newfound clients what they wanted.
“Whatever lobbying was done didn’t reach the president,” Giuliani said, offering as proof the fact that AT&T’s proposed merger with Time-Warner has not gone through.