https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/08/att-michael-cohen-hired-576213
Drain the swamp? Sure Donald.
Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s longtime personal attorney, faced explosive claims about his business dealings on Tuesday, prompting AT&T and a company with ties to a Russian oligarch to acknowledge retaining him after the 2016 election.
In a seven-page document he distributed online, Avenatti claimed that the same Cohen bank account was involved in transactions totaling more than $4.4 million and made from October 2016 through January 2018. Those transactions included $200,000 from AT&T and some $500,000 in deposits from Columbus Nova, a company linked to Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, who was sanctioned last month by the U.S. as punishment for Kremlin meddling in the U.S. election. The company on Tuesday said Vekselberg was not involved in the transactions.
Cohen also accepted nearly $400,000 from pharmaceutical giant Novartis between October 2017 and January 2018, according to Avenatti. A Novartis spokesman said the company was “still trying to assess the facts” and noted that any contractual agreements were made prior to the current chief executive officer’s tenure.
“Essentially it becomes foreign bribery, bribery by a foreign country. It is a corrupt payment to a sitting present,” said one person familiar with the Mueller investigation.
Mueller is investigating Russian-American contributions to Trump, including those made to the Trump’s inauguration committee. Investigators believe Vekselberg, 60, was one of several influential Russians who attended inaugural events.
Drain the swamp? Sure Donald.
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