same llc of sorts which is michael cohen hundreds of thousands of dollars after the election. for what? john, what do they say? . $200,000 at least to at&t. and this was at a time when tat was seeking government approval for merger with time warner which owns cnn. $1.2 million paid to cohen s company over the course of a year by kno novartis. essential consulting 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 of 2017. in a statement to fox news, which i m trying to get out of my notes here, give me a moment because the pages are stuck together, novartis saying believed michael cohen could advise the company as to how the trump
russian oligarch viktor vekselberg, the one you mentioned. and $1.2 million from novartis pharmaceuticals. at the time that at&t was paying michael cohen they were looking for government approval for merger with time warner. according to avenatti there were more than $4 million of payments made to michael cohen. a number of companies issued statements about the relationship with the president s personal attorney. at&t saying, essential consulting was one of several firms we engagedded 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 2018. and they said that columbus nova is a management company owned by americans. after the inauguration the firm hired michael cohen as a business consultant with the potential investment in real estate. reports that viktor vekselberg
underhanded. it is rather unethical. it is the swamp that trump talked about. and while john is right that it is very interesting to know where this money went once it was in the slush fund, for me, the more interesting is how do they know to put it in there in the first place? this is not some well known llc. in fact it was not known at all until about a month ago. someone must have told them, hey, if you want to curry favor with us, go to essential consulting or whatever it s called, llc, that s run by michael cohen. no one s going to michael cohen for real estate advice. no one is going to michael cohen for lobbying help. business consulting. or business consulting. no offense to michael cohen. they re going to michael cohen because he s close to the president, but someone had to direct them to this place to begin with, and who was it? how harrowing it must it be to be michael cohen and know what the feds have. well, he was with michael avenatti when the story broke. i was i
neither he nor anyone else was involved in the decision to hire michael cohen or provided funding for his engagement. now, i mentioned that giant telecom company, at&t, also reportedly paid $200,000 to essential consultants llc. they released this statement tonight. quote, essential consulting was one of several firms we engaged in early 2017 to provide insights into understanding the new administration. a couple of things interesting about that. at&t is hiring essential consult i
a couple of things are interesting about that. first of all, at&t is hiring essential consulting to provide insights to under the new administration. i don t know who they is unless they consider michael and cohen to be two people. at&t is saying they needed to hire this firm, michael cohen s weird shell company that pays porn stars, they needed to hire them for hundreds of thousands of dollars to get insight. why would at&t want to put michael cohen on the freaking payroll in 2017? i mean, they have important government business. they re trying to go through this merger with time warner. they had strong interest in the net neutrality matter. finally, we got what i consider to be a surprising statement from novartis, the