The improbable intersection of President Trump's Stormy Daniels debacle and the
FBI investigation into Russian collusion with Candidate Trump's team is...
Michael Cohen.
Mr. Cohen, infamously known as Mr. Trump's "fixer," is at the center of both worlds and,
of late, at the center of media attention.
Essential Consultants
Mr. Cohen set up a shell company called Essential Consultants through which he
paid Ms. Daniels the hush money and through which he received a half million
dollars in payments from Columbus Nova, a company owned by billionaire Russian oligarch
Viktor Vekselberg. From The Washington Post: 1
The company’s confirmation came after Michael Avenatti, a lawyer for adult-film actress
Stormy Daniels, circulated on Twitter a document purporting to show a detailed
accounting of wire transfers made to Essential Consultants, a company established by
Cohen in October 2016.
The payments listed in the document began in the months after Cohen paid $130,000
to Daniels just before the November 2016 election, as part of an agreement that
required her to not speak publicly about an affair she says she had with Trump a
decade earlier.
In the document, Avenatti claims that Cohen received $500,000 from Columbus Nova
between January 2017 and August 2017.
Avenatti did not provide supporting documentation for his claims, though Columbus
Nova and AT&T, another company named in the document, both released statements in the
hours after Avenatti's disclosure confirming that they had business relationships
with Cohen.
Open for Business
The Washington Post article digs deeper into other companies involved
with Essential Consultants. It certainly seems this intersection is bigger than just
Daniels and Russia — Cohen is where companies go to get VIP backstage passes to the
whole Trump sh!tshow.
The image below might offer some assitance in tracking
along: 2
Look closely at the transactions originating from the blue boxes. Reporting
from The Washington Post certainly seems to infer these payments were made
to get access to President Trump and for lucrative government contracts:
Shortly after the last transaction from Novartis identified by Avenatti, in January,
Trump met with executives including the incoming CEO of Novartis, Vas Narasimhan,
during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Korea Aerospace is in contention for a multibillion-dollar joint contract with
Lockheed Martin to produce jet trainers for the U.S. Air Force. A company representative
confirmed paying the Cohen company, but said the payments were to provide legal
consulting to assist in the company’s reorganization of its "internal accounting system"
and did not involve the Air Force deal or other lobbying. 1
The document from Avenatti says AT&T paid Cohen $50,000 a month for four months
starting in October 2017, just weeks before Trump’s Justice Department filed suit
to block AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner. . . . A spokesman for AT&T confirmed
that the company engaged Essential Consultants, a company formed by Cohen in early
2017 "to provide insights into understanding the new
administration." 2
Mr. Trump is open for business. And for that kind of access, you need.... an essential
consultant.