Stormy Daniels's lawyer: Cohen was paid $500K by Putin-tied company after election

[Charlemagne]

Here we go...

LOCK HIM UP LOCK HIM UP LOCK HIM UP


May 08, 2018 - 05:23 PM EDT

Stormy Daniels's lawyer: Cohen was paid $500K by Putin-tied company after election

Stormy Daniels' lawyer: Cohen may have used funds from Putin-tied company in hush money deal

BY JACQUELINE THOMSEN

Stormy Daniels’s attorney Michael Avenatti said Tuesday that President Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen received $500,000 in the months after the 2016 election from a company run by a Russian oligarch with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Avenatti said the funding may have been used to reimburse the $130,000 payment Cohen made to Daniels to stay quiet about her alleged affair with Trump.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani revealed last week that Trump had reimbursed Cohen $130,000, which was given to Daniels just days before the 2016 election. Cohen had earlier claimed that the nondisclosure payment came from his own funds, and Trump had told reporters he was unaware it had been been made.

Giuliani, who recently joined Trump’s personal legal team, has said that Trump only recently learned of the payment to Daniels, and he has not ruled out the possibility that Cohen made payments to other women on Trump's behalf.

Avenatti released a report with preliminary findings about the bank account he says Cohen used to make the payment to Daniels. That account was made in the name of the company Cohen created to transfer the money to Daniels, Essential Consultants LLC.

The report states that Cohen’s account received roughly $500,000 in payments from Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg. Those payments were reportedly made between January and August 2017.

“Mr. Cohen inexplicably accepted these payments while he was the personal attorney to the President and holding himself out at times as employed by the Trump Organization (with few other clients),” the report reads.

“This was occurring at the same time significant questions were being raised relating to (a) the involvement of Russia and Vladimir Putin in the 2016 Presidential Election and (b) the extent of the relationship between Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump."

CNN reported Tuesday evening that special counsel Robert Mueller's team has questioned Vekselberg about the payments to Cohen, as well as donations the head of his U.S. affiliate made to Trump's campaign and inauguration fund.

Vekselberg, who is one of the subjects of recent U.S. sanctions, is one of two Russian oligarchs stopped by FBI agents earlier this year after their planes landed in New York.

The report released by Avenatti also claims that the bank account received payments totaling nearly $400,000 from global pharmaceutical company Novartis, and noted that Trump reportedly had a dinner meeting in Switzerland with the Novartis CEO shortly after the transactions were made.

The Hill has reached out to Cohen's attorney Stephen Ryan for comment.

Daniels, an adult-film star whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, says she had an affair with Trump more than a decade ago. She is suing to negate the nondisclosure agreement she signed with Cohen, as well as suing both Cohen and Trump for defamation after they accused her of lying.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/386802-stormy-daniels-lawyer-cohen-may-have-used-money-from-putin-tied

 

[Aardvark154]

Michael Avenatt increasingly strikes me as a political operative, rather than as a lawyer representing a client.

 

[K Douglas]

Michael Avenatt increasingly strikes me as a political operative, rather than as a lawyer representing a client.

Check his background. His credibility is questionable, to say the least.

 

[mandrill]

Michael Avenatt increasingly strikes me as a political operative, rather than as a lawyer representing a client.

Yes, But it is working regardless. He is creating chaos!

 

[Frankfooter]

Michael Avenatt increasingly strikes me as a political operative, rather than as a lawyer representing a client.

Trump is the one that took on Daniels.
Don't blame her for hiring smart lawyers, blame Trump for total incompetence, personally and through his legal team.

 

[mandrill]

To keep news of a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels quiet, President Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen created a limited liability company in Delaware called Essential Consultants. Cohen said that he paid $130,000 of his own money into a bank account associated with the company and, from that account, transferred the money to Daniels’s attorney at the time, Keith Davidson.

The bank account, it seems, was a little busier than just that.

On Tuesday, Daniels’s current attorney, Michael Avenatti, released a document detailing a much more complex set of transactions involving the Essential Consultants account with First National Bank. In total, he alleged, more than $4 million passed through the account in 2017 and early this year, including payments from entities associated with major companies such as AT&T and the drug company Novartis. Most explosively, he claimed that Essential Consultants had received $500,000 from a company affiliated with the Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg.

Last week, the New York Times reported that Vekselberg had been detained and questioned by federal agents related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe earlier this year. Vekselberg attended Trump’s inauguration, as well as a December 2015 dinner in Moscow that was also attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin and former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn.

AT&T and Novartis acknowledged the payments, with the former describing Essential Consultants as being one of a series of firms hired to “provide insights into understanding the new administration.” An attorney for the firm Columbus Nova — the one associated with Vekselberg — told The Washington Post that the payments were for consulting work not related to the Russian or his business, Renova Group.

The flow of cash detailed both in news reports and in Avenatti’s document is complex, so we created a graphic to help explain it.

At upper right are payments from four companies, including the three mentioned above and one called Korea Aerospace Industries. Over the course of 17 payments from January 2017 to January 2018, the four companies paid Essential Consultants over $1.2 million. In mid-2017, Cohen allegedly pulled more than a million from the Essential Consultants account into his own account at Morgan Stanley.

Then there are the payments to the women for whom Cohen facilitated hush agreements. The $130,000 to Daniels, as mentioned above, but also $1.6 million that Cohen negotiated as a payment to keep quiet a relationship between a Playboy playmate and Republican donor Elliott Broidy. This payment, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, included a $62,500 payment from Broidy to Essential Consultants as part of Cohen’s fee for his work. The Avenatti document alleges that another $387,500 was routed in three payments through a third company to Keith Davidson — also the lawyer for the playmate.

It’s clear from the reported transactions that there was more money flowing into the Essential Consultants account than has been revealed. (At the time Cohen withdrew the $1 million, the account hadn’t yet received the $750,000 paid by AT&T, Novartis and Korea Aerospace.) Meaning that if Avenatti’s representation is accurate, the graphic above is still incomplete.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...company/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.895e2cb7bc41

 

[mandrill]

The Russian oligarch who allegedly gave Michael Cohen $500,000 was at Trump's inauguration AND Mike Flynn's 2015 dinner in Moscow.

 

[mandrill]

Swiss Drug Giant Novartis Confirms $400K In Payments To Cohen For Advice On “Healthcare Policy Matters”

May 9, 2018 Trump Corruption, Trump Lies

Reuters reports:

Novartis has ended a contract with a U.S. firm linked to U.S. President Donald Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, and has cooperated with a special counsel looking into potential meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, the Swiss drugmaker said.

It was responding to remarks by an attorney for porn star Stormy Daniels that Novartis was among companies that made payments to Cohen’s Essential Consultants outfit in late 2017 and early 2018.

“In February 2017, Novartis entered into a one-year agreement with Essential Consultants shortly after the election of President Trump focused on U.S. healthcare policy matters. The terms were consistent with the market. The agreement expired in February 2018,” Novartis said in a statement on Wednesday.

STAT News reports:

A Novartis unit called Novartis Investment SARL made four payments, each one totaling $99,980, to the consulting firm, according to documents released by Michael Avenatti, the lawyer for Stormy Daniels, the pornographic film star whose real name is Stephanie Clifford and who was paid $130,000 by Essential Consultants to keep quiet about her alleged affair with Trump.

The first Novartis payment was purportedly made on Oct. 5, 2017, while the subsequent payments followed in successive months — Nov. 3, 2017, Dec. 1, 2017, and Jan. 5, 2018, according to the documents. A Novartis spokesman wrote us that “any contracts were done prior to (chief executive officer Vasant Narasimhan) taking over.”

http://www.joemygod.com/2018/05/09/...o-michael-cohen-for-healthcare-policy-advice/


Not bad for a guy who barely graduated from America's shittiest, sleaziest law school and who used to have a law office above a taxi garage.

I'm glad Trump is "draining the swamp".

Be Best, Trumpies!

 

[mandrill]

Vice news article on what we know so far about the several Cohen corporate payments.

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article...ti-oligarch-russia?utm_source=vicenewstwitter

 

[Frankfooter]

Cohen also took money from AT&T as well as the Korean military.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ked-to-payments-sent-via-trump-s-lawyer-cohen

Stormy Daniels may just take down the Trump presidency.

 

[mandrill]

Cohen also took money from AT&T as well as the Korean military.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ked-to-payments-sent-via-trump-s-lawyer-cohen

Stormy Daniels may just take down the Trump presidency.

Trump will throw Cohen under the bus by the end of this week and say he had no idea that Cohen was taking those payments - which might be true. Cohen is a sleazeball of magnificent proportions in his own right and could have been personally cashing in on his closeness to Trump.

That should be the final straw to flip Cohen into a federal witness.

 

[danmand]

Trump will throw Cohen under the bus by the end of this week and say he had no idea that Cohen was taking those payments - which might be true. Cohen is a sleazeball of magnificent proportions in his own right and could have been personally cashing in on his closeness to Trump.

That should be the final straw to flip Cohen into a federal witness.

As Stockman so clearly predicted: Trump has given the Deep State all it wants from him, so he can now be discarded.

Trump is too dumb to recognize what is being done to him. https://terb.cc/vbulletin/showthrea...-The-Deep-State-Wins-Its-War-On-America-First

 

[wigglee]

Michael Avenatt increasingly strikes me as a political operative, rather than as a lawyer representing a client.

Aardvark attacks a man who is exposing the web of corruption that pervades the Trump swamp. He is doing his job rather well, seeing as his client is under attack from the Orangutan.

 

[essguy_]

Aardvark attacks a man who is exposing the web of corruption that pervades the Trump swamp. He is doing his job rather well, seeing as his client is under attack from the Orangutan.

Think of the mental gymnastics required for a Trump supporter to attack the credibility of an opponent’s lawyer with a straight face.

 

[Butler1000]

Aardvark attacks a man who is exposing the web of corruption that pervades the Trump swamp. He is doing his job rather well, seeing as his client is under attack from the Orangutan.

Maybe not. The infirmation he us leaking should not be in his possession. It's private banking Information he never received as a part of any case.

This may well be illegal. Both with the bank and him. At least that's what I saw reported on CNN.

Oops.

 

[essguy_]

Maybe not. The infirmation he us leaking should not be in his possession. It's private banking Information he never received as a part of any case.

This may well be illegal. Both with the bank and him. At least that's what I saw reported on CNN.

Oops.

It could also have been legally obtained via subpoena in Stormy’s Civil suit against Cohen in California. And even a die-hard Trump fan such as yourself must admit that nobody is denying the contents, so damage done.

 

[Butler1000]

It could also have been legally obtained via subpoena in Stormy’s Civil suit against Cohen in California. And even a die-hard Trump fan such as yourself must admit that nobody is denying the contents, so damage done.

If it was obtained illegally then how did he get it? Again this is a serious matter where banking privacy laws were broken for a political attack.

If you are so blinded by personal hatred for Trump not to see the greater issue just remember that this is a greater attack on democracy than anything you claim Trump has done.

Do you really want proxies to be able to release illegally obtained private banking Information on anyone they choose for gain and get away with it?

 

[toguy5252]

I have no idea as to how the information and documents were obtained by Avenati and whether the possession is legal or not but right on cue the Trumpanistas attack the messenger rather than dealing with the allegations and the consequences and significance if the allegations are true.

If Avenati has done something illegal then he should face the consequnces but that is entirely apart from dealing with the information itself.

 

[Butler1000]

I have no idea as to how the information and documents were obtained by Avenati and whether the possession is legal or not but right on cue the Trumpanistas attack the messenger rather than dealing with the allegations and the consequences and significance if the allegations are true.

If Avenati has done something illegal then he should face the consequnces but that is entirely apart from dealing with the information itself.

He also apparently released infirmation about other people with the name Michael Cohen. Innocent people.

Doesn't this make you wonder how he obtained the private information on people with the same name?

And should there be serious consequences for this type of privacy breach of innocent people's banking?

I consider this a much greater issue. It could not have been obtained legally and obviously wasn't vetted by this lawyer. He dumped it heedless of the consequences.

If it was YOUR info would you be ok with it?

 

[Frankfooter]

He also apparently released infirmation about other people with the name Michael Cohen. Innocent people.

Doesn't this make you wonder how he obtained the private information on people with the same name?

And should there be serious consequences for this type of privacy breach of innocent people's banking?

I consider this a much greater issue. It could not have been obtained legally and obviously wasn't vetted by this lawyer. He dumped it heedless of the consequences.

If it was YOUR info would you be ok with it?

That's Cohen claiming that it was a different Michael Cohen, like he did about the piss dossier claims that he went to Prague to pay off the Russians for Trump.
Same tactics.

Avenati has stated that he 'won't reveal his sources' for the Cohen banking info and he says he has more documents.
He's playing the media very well, and I would expect that he's smart enough to not have set himself up for charges by releasing Cohen's banking info.

I'd say he's just getting warmed up.