Michael Cohen, President Trump’s personal lawyer, is challenging portions of a report released Tuesday by porn star Stormy Daniels’ lawyer that detail payments he received for consulting work.
Cohen’s attorney Stephen Ryan claims that some of the payments were not actually made to Cohen and were in fact made to other “Michael Cohens.”
“This document is concerning for a number of reasons, including the number of blatantly incorrect statements it contains,” Ryan said in a complaint letter to a federal judge, according to NBC News.
The report from Michael Avenatti, Daniels’ lawyer, claims that Essential Consultants, a company Cohen established to pay Daniels $130,000 right before the 2016 election in exchange for her silence on an alleged affair with Trump, received payments from an American company with ties to a Russian billionaire, global pharmaceutical company Novartis, and AT&T.
Additionally, the report noted smaller payments from international companies and individuals, which Cohen’s team is challenging, including a $980 payment from two men in Kenya to a Michael Cohen.
The Michael Cohen who received the funds from the Kenyan men is from Israel and said that the payment was made because one of the men was his brother, who “owed me some money.”
There are several other transactions that Ryan also claimed are inaccurate, and Ryan argued that some of the information included in Avenatti’s report is not portrayed accurately.
“Mr. Avenatti has published some information that appears to be from Mr. Cohen’s actual bank records, and Mr. Cohen has no reason to believe that Mr. Avenatti is in lawful possession of these records,” Ryan said.
Avenatti addressed the filing on social media, tweeting that the Cohen and his team “effectively concede the receipt of the $500,000 from those with Russian ties.”
“Let me get this straight. The best they have to try to undercut our report is pointing to a few small transactions with minimal dollar amounts? Are you kidding me?” Avenatti said in a statement to NBC. “Why don’t they address the four 3,000-pound elephants in the room? Namely Columbus Nova, Novartis, AT&T and Korea Aerospace Industries?”
