AT&T verified Tuesday that it paid a company owned by President Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, for consulting work at a time when the company was hoping the federal government would approve a merger with Time-Warner.
The company paid an undisclosed amount to Essential Consultants, a company Cohen established to also pay porn actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 in exchange for her silence on an alleged affair with Trump. Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti, said the company paid out a total of $200,000 in late 2017 and early 2018.
AT&T said Tuesday evening that the company hired Essential Consultants to “provide insights into understanding the new administration.”
“Essential Consulting was one of several firms we engaged in early 2017 to provide insights into understanding the new administration,” AT&T said in a statement. “They did no legal or lobbying work for us, and the contract ended in December 2017.”
The payments were made when AT&T was trying to obtain government approval for the deal. The Trump administration blocked the AT&T-Time Warner merger in November.
Avenatti alleged that global pharmaceutical company Novartis paid Essential Consultants almost $400,000, and that Trump met with the company’s CEO not long after the payments were made, which was just before the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland earlier this year.
Avenatti also suggested on Tuesday that funds Essential Consulting received from a Russian billionaire could have been used to reimburse Cohen for the $130,000 he used to pay Daniels.
Cohen previously admitted that he used his own money to pay Daniels, and Trump denied knowing anything about the payment aboard Air Force One last month.
Rudy Giuliani, who recently became part of Trump’s legal team, said last week that Trump had repaid Cohen and only learned about the nature of the payment 10 days earlier.
Daniels filed a lawsuit earlier this year claiming the nondisclosure agreement she signed should be nullified because Trump didn’t sign it, and has sued Cohen and Trump for defamation. The White House has said Trump denies having an affair with Daniels.
