Various companies, including Columbus Nova (a Russian oligarch), appeared to have doled out over $4.4million to Micheal Cohen after President Donald Trump’s election. Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels lawyer leaked the information in an Executive Summary on Tuesday night. The payment by the companies to Cohen so as to provide “legal consulting regarding accounting standards” to Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI), act as a lobbyist for pharmaceutical giant Novartis and provide “insights” to AT&T might be a dilemma for him.
The payments to Cohen were paid to a shell company he created just before he made the $130,000 hush money payment to Daniels through the same company. It was less than two weeks before the 2016 presidential election. Pharmaceutical giant Novartis paid Cohen $1.2 million, AT&T paid Cohen at least $200,000, KAI paid $150,000, and $500,000 was paid to Cohen via the shell company by Columbus Nova, a New York investment firm linked to a Russian oligarch, who confirmed the payment but denied any misconduct regarding it. The timing of the payments to Cohen’s shell company, however, falls just a few months after the $130,000 to Daniels’, it creates a potential liability for Cohen under campaign finance law. And, Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s recent statements support the act being campaign-related.
A contribution by a Foreign National in connection with a United States election is illegal and so; If the payment to Daniels’ was related to the campaign, it is possible that the oligarch used Columbus Nova and Cohen’s shell company to funnel a contribution to help Trump.
The summary by Avenatti also listed several alleged false statements by Cohen to First Republic Bank when he created the bank account for the shell company. Knowingly making false statements to a financial institution is often times an element of bank fraud which helps ascertain why federal prosecutors are investigating Cohen for bank fraud and campaign finance violations. Cohen’s team questioned how Avenatti came to possess the bank records and pointed out some inaccuracies in the summary. Cohen insists that the alleged evidence against him is being confused with other Michael Cohen’s as his team pointed out. But this was relating to only two transactions excluding the payments made by the companies mentioned.
