AT&T paid Cohen for advice on merger, more
Three days after President Donald Trump was sworn into office, AT&T turned to his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, for help on a wide portfolio of issues pending before the federal government — including the company’s proposed merger with Time Warner, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.
The internal documents reveal that Cohen’s $600,000 deal with AT&T specified that he would provide advice on the $85 billion merger, which required the approval of federal antitrust regulators.
Trump had voiced opposition to the merger during the campaign, and his administration ultimately sided against AT&T. The Department of Justice filed suit in November to block the deal, a case that is still pending.
Cohen’s deals with AT&T and other corporate clients were first revealed this week by an attorney for adult-film star Stormy Daniels, but the new documents obtained by The Post offered greater detail about his arrangement with telecom company and the type of work he had been hired to perform.
It is unclear what insight Cohen — a longtime real estate attorney — could have provided AT&T on complex telecom matters.
At the same time he was collecting $50,000 a month from AT&T, Cohen was being paid large sums to advise other companies on a variety of issues. In the wake of Trump’s election, corporate clients paid Cohen at least $2.95 million through a company called Essential Consultants, according to figures confirmed by the companies.
Essential Consultants was the same company Cohen used in October 2016 to route money to Daniels in exchange for her agreement not to disclose an alleged sexual encounter with Trump.
AT&T and the pharmaceutical company Novartis, another Cohen client, said this week that they provided information about their dealings with Trump’s lawyer to special counsel Robert Mueller last year. Cohen is also under investigation by prosecutors in New York for possible bank fraud and campaign finance violations.
A “scope of work” describing Cohen’s contract in an internal AT&T document shows that he was hired to “focus on specific long-term planning initiatives as well as the immediate issue of corporate tax reform and the acquisition of Time Warner.”
He was also directed to “creatively address political and communications issues” facing the company and advise the company on matters before the Federal Communications Commission.
AT&T declined to comment on the documents, which were provided to The Post anonymously, but did not challenge their authenticity.
Cohen’s lawyer, Stephen Ryan, declined to comment. Cohen did not respond to requests for comment.
The internal AT&T documents show that Cohen was supposed to spend half of his time on “legislative policy development” and the other half on “regulatory policy development.” Payments to Cohen were approved by two executives in AT&T’s public affairs office in Washington.
The documents specified that Cohen, who was not a registered lobbyist, was to spend none of his time engaged in lobbying.