$1.2 million for a year for nothing, whether or not it s surprising to see them in the middle of this scandal, honestly what is surprising to me, for a company like this, with that recent legal history that they ve got, they haven t figured out how to make innocent-sounding public statements when they get accused of being involved in something this shady? you haven t figured out that your first answer shouldn t be not it! the headline allegation for mr. avenatti s documents cons to be that one of the entities that paid money into the shell company set up by michael cohen is associated with russian oligarch named viktor vekselberg. vekselberg was sanctioned by the u.s. government last month along with his gigantic holding company which is called renova, an investment firm linked to renova. from january of august last year for a total of a half million. the new york times reported last week that vekselberg was personally stopped at a u.s. airport and questioned by mueller s team.
them in contact with the special counsel s investigation into the russia scandal. quote, 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. a few weeks later, our consulting contract with cohen expired at the end of the year. to be clear, this means that at and freaking t was paying michael cohen in november 2017. what were they paying for? for an understanding of the inner workings of trump. they ve got him on the payroll. they re paying him 50 large a month. november 2017, mueller s office comes and knocks, can we talk to you than? they kept paying him in november after that, and in december as mueller kept asking more questions. and into january. that wasn t even an occasion for them to cut off the payments. the other ginormous corporation brought into the scandal now is novartis pharmaceutical company. and whoever is doing their
the difference between those two price, between the fake price and the real price is actually money that they just pocketed themselves. so this is an important company in that country, right? a singular role in their manufacturing sector, and it s got important national security implications, both because the entity they were ripping off was their own military, but also because the ability to manufacture aircraft, particularly military aircraft is an important part of any country s national defense. and in south korea, that is a fraught issue at the moment for of course reasons. so, that scandal, what happened with that aircraft manufacturing company last year, that was always going to be a big deal scandal. but it end upped being more dramatic and tragic than most. the ceo of that company wasn t just fired in this scandal, he was arrested, and the vice president of the company killed himself as prosecutors closed in and started to uncover the fraud. now the company in question was
brought us lots of revelations of lots of different kinds. but, again, we re standing we re standing there in the woods and we re looking at this particular stand of trees, and we re thinking huh, this is a lawsuit, this is a scandal about an alleged sexual relationship involving the president. that s remarkable enough in u.s. history. right? but now the revelations that have sprung from the allegations about that supposed affair, that there was a business entity called essential consultants that was set up to facilitate that payment secretly, well, what s derived from that next piece of that story makes the stand of trees look like it s in a whole different kind of forest, right? now we re on to a financial story that pertains to the president, that pertains to his lawyer and this administration, and that pertains to the investigation into russia interfering with our election and the request of whether or not the trump campaign was in on it. how did we get from the alleged affair to
fraught issue at the moment for of course reasonbvious reasons. so that scandal, what happened with that aircraft manufacturing company last year, that was always going to be a big deal scandal. but it end upped being more dramatic and tragic than most. the ceo of that company wasn t just fired in this scandal, he was arrested, and the vice president of the company killed himself as prosecutors closed in and started to uncover the fraud. now the company in question was called korea aerospace industries. and all this stuff happened last fall. the vice president of the company killed himself in september. the ceo was indicted in october, and then in november, the following month, korea aerospace industries for some reason sent a check for $150,000 to michael cohen, the personal attorney of president donald j. trump. that $150,000 payment to michael cohen from korea aerospace industries, it was first