President’s lawyer ‘paid £370,000’ by firm with links to Russian billionaire
DONALD TRUMP’S personal lawyer has been accused of receiving $500,000 (£370,000) from a company associated with a Russian billionaire shortly after he became president.
Michael Cohen was also facing questions after it emerged he had been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by major US companies with government business interests.
The claims about payments to Mr Cohen were initially made by Michael Avenatti, the lawyer representing Stormy Daniels, the porn star who claims to have had an affair with Mr Trump a decade ago.
The companies involved later confirmed the payments. Around $500,000 was paid to Essential Consultants, Mr Cohen’s company, between January and August 2017 by Columbus Nova, a New York-based investment firm.
It is headed by Andrew Intrater, the cousin of Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian billionaire with ties to the Kremlin. Mr Vekselberg heads the Renova Group and is worth $14.6billion.
He attended Mr Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, but was targeted for US sanctions last month.
The New York Times reported last week he had been questioned by the team of Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian meddling in the US election.
In a statement, Andrey Shtorkh, a spokesman for Mr Vekselberg and the Renova Group, said “neither Victor Vekselberg nor Renova has ever had any contractual relationship” with Mr Cohen or Essential Consultants.
Richard Owens, Columbus Nova’s lawyer, said the company was “solely owned and controlled by Americans” and hired Mr Cohen as a business consultant partly for expertise on property investments. He added: “Neither Viktor Vekselberg nor anyone else, other than Columbus Nova’s owners, were involved in the decision to hire Cohen or provided funding for his engagement.”
Essential Consultants was the same company Mr Cohen used to pay $130,000 to Ms Daniels days before the 2016 election. Mr Trump denies her allegations of an affair. According to The
New York Times a total of $4.4million flowed through it from shortly before the election to January 2018.
Other large sums were paid to Essential Consultants by AT&T, pharmaceutical giant Novartis, and Korea Aerospace Industries.
Novartis said it had been contacted by Mr Mueller’s office and had co-operated fully. It said Mr Cohen was paid for advice on health policy. Shortly after the payments a senior Novartis executive dined with Mr Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
AT&T said Mr Cohen had been hired for “insight into understanding the new administration”. At the time it had a major merger, with Time Warner, under review by the Justice Department.
Mr Avenatti told MSNBC: “Michael Cohen appears to be selling access to the president of the United States.”
Mr Cohen has dismissed Mr Avenatti’s assertions as “inaccurate”.