AT&T chief: ‘Big mistake’ to hire Cohen
WASHINGTON — Randall Stephenson, AT&T’s chief executive, said Friday that the company had made a “big mistake” by hiring President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to provide advice on federal policy, including how the government might approach the telecommunications giant’s deal to buy Time Warner.
Stephenson also said the company’s head of lobbying and external affairs, Bob Quinn, would be leaving the company.
“Our company has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons these last few days and our reputation has been damaged,” Stephenson wrote in a memo to employees. “There is no other way to say it — AT&T hiring Michael Cohen as a political consultant was a big mistake.”
Stephenson’s note followed the revelation this week that the company had paid Cohen $600,000 to advise on the $85.4 billion merger with Time Warner and other regulatory matters.
Federal prosecutors are investigating Cohen’s business dealings, including a $130,000 payment he made to the adult-film actress Stephanie Clifford, known professionally as Stormy Daniels, to buy her silence about an affair she says she had with Trump. The president has denied Clifford’s claims.
The payment to Clifford was the first known activity involving Essential Consultants, a company started by Cohen. It was through Essential Consultants that AT&T retained Cohen. Several other businesses, including the Swiss drugmaker Novartis and an American company linked to a Russian oligarch, also sent payments to Cohen’s company.
The Russian, Viktor Vekselberg, was stopped and questioned at an airport this year by investigators for Robert Mueller, the special counsel examining Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Although AT&T’s statements were meant to distance itself from Cohen and the arrangement on Friday, they also provided insight into how companies like AT&T operate in Washington during the Trump era.
Trump pledged during his campaign to clamp down on the revolving door between government and K Street, which is home to many of the capital’s lobbying firms.
But the anti-lobbying rhetoric and policies did not discourage some former Trump aides from seeking big paydays from the influence industry.
Some Trump insiders, including Cohen positioned themselves as strategic advisers. Because they were offering insight — or political intelligence — on Trump and his team, and not overtly lobbying, they did not need to disclose their role to Congress and possibly the Justice Department.
AT&T paid a total of $4.1 million in lobbying fees to nearly 30 firms through the first three months of this year, according to congressional lobbying filings. The filings show the largest fees paid to those firms were around $35,000 a month — significantly less than the $50,000 a month the company paid Cohen. It is unclear what services Cohen provided.