recently formed as a delaware shell company just days before it was used to pay off a porn star who said she had an affair with the president, in what universe would a company in that situation funnel money to michael cohen and essential consultants? what s actually the most amazing part of this initial statement from korea aerospace industries is the part where they say they had no idea when they sent that check that the company they were paying had any connection whatsoever to president trump. oh really? we re just supposed to believe that in all the world, michael cohen is the guy who you would hire to review and improve your internal accounting practices at your korean aerospace firm? out of all the lawyers in the world. well, tonight korea aerospace industries has decided to take another crack at explaining this. they have given a new statement to cnn. a spokesperson for the company telling cnn, quote, korea aerospace industries received
but they finally came up with something to say. they finally came up with an initial explanation for that payment in time to say this to the washington post. quote, korea aerospace industries confirmed to the washington post that it paid $150,000 to cohen s company, but spokesman oh sung high pressure keon said that aerospace industries was not aware of the company s connection to president trump. the company said it paid michael cohen s firm, quote, to affirm reorganization of our internal accounting system. this is a company, a major company that had just been through a devastating and literally fatal corruption scandal involving accounting fraud by its top executives in a nation-shaking corruption scandal. in what universe would a company in that situation seek out michael cohen and specifically his little company, essential consultants llc which was
president killed himself and their ceo was indicted in this giant corruption scandal, the news of that $150,000 payment to michael cohen at that time, it was first reported in these documents released last night by michael avenatti. subsequent to mr. avenatti putting that information out there, the washington post got to work trying to track down and confirm that part of the story, and a lot of other people had called them and initially korea aerospace industries gave everybody else who was looking for explanation a no comment, but they finally came up with something to say. they finally came up with an initial explanation for that payment in time to say this to the washington post. quote, korea aerospace industries confirmed to the washington post that it paid $150,000 to cohen s company, but spokesman oh sung-keon said that aerospace industries was not aware of the company s connection to president trump. the company said it paid michael cohen s firm, quote, to affirm
it has since been reported that vekselberg s american cousin who runs that investment firm associated with renova, his american cousin has also been questioned in the special counsel s investigation. it s the cousin s firm that reportedly paid cohen. that said the firm is denying any connection between vekselberg himself and the payments to michael cohen. the company does confirm that they paid michael cohen. they say they paid him as a business consultant. they say they paid him as a business consultant, quote, regarding potential sources of capital. question number one, why do we know this stuff? michael avenatti somehow got access to these financial transactions now. and they re at least partially confirmed, these detailed financial records about this secretive business entity associated with michael cohen. other news agencies have been able to obtain financial documents which they say on excuse me, which they say corroborate avenatti s reporting. and we ve had a whole day of
counsel s office reporting agreement with essential consultants. novartis cooperated fully with the special counsel s office and provided all of the information requested. i don t know if novartis then spent the day today getting questions about why michael cohen was their health care policy consultant, but late in the day novartis came up with yet another revision, a third revision of their statement, a third explanation for what had happened here. this is the statement where they actually admitted that what they really paid michael cohen for was nothing. they paid him for doing nothing. and this is where we learn that they didn t just pay him $400,000, as it said in the avenatti document last night, they paid him $1.2 million. again, and they paid him for nothing. quote, the agreement was for a term of one year and paid essential consultants $100,000 per month. in march 2017, novartis had its first meeting with michael cohen under this agreement. following this initial meeting,