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An attorney for adult film star Stormy Daniels said on Tuesday that President Donald Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen was paid $500,000 by a company with ties to a Russian oligarch who was hit last month with US sanctions to punish Moscow for activities that included suspected meddling in the 2016 US election.
It was not immediately clear how Avenatti would know of any payments made to Cohen. Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, has said Cohen paid her $130,000 in October 2016 to stay quiet about a sexual encounter she had with Trump in 2006.
Neither Avenatti nor Cohen responded to requests from Reuters for comment.
The disclosures could add to pressure on Cohen, whose house, office and hotel room were raided by the FBI a month ago as part of a criminal investigation into the hush payment and other business dealings.
A lawyer for Columbus Nova said Vekselberg had nothing to do with the transactions.
Columbus Nova was listed by Renova Group as one of its companies as of November 2017, according to an archived webpage for Renova, whose website now says it is under construction. Renova Group is a conglomerate controlled by Vekselberg.
The United States imposed sanctions last month on Vekselberg and Renova to retaliate for the Kremlin's suspected meddling in the 2016 US election and other "malign activity."
Russia denies US intelligence agencies’ accusations it meddled in the election, and Trump has denied any collusion. He also denies having had an affair with Daniels.
Vekselberg and Intrater could not be reached for comment, but Richard Owens, a lawyer for Columbus Nova, said in a statement the company hired Cohen after Trump's January 2017 inauguration "as a business consultant regarding sources of capital and potential investments in real estate and other ventures."
Owens said Columbus Nova was solely owned by Americans and that any claim that Vekselberg was involved in providing funding for the payments to Cohen was "patently untrue."
"There are too many unknowns to reach conclusions as to whether anything involved with these transactions was illegal," said Michael Zeldin, a money-laundering expert and former federal prosecutor who is now a legal analyst on CNN.
AT&T confirmed the payments, saying they were aimed at gaining "insights" into the new administration. AT&T has been pursuing an $85 billion takeover of Time Warner Inc, which the US Justice Department is trying to stop.
AT&T said Essential Consultants was one of several firms it "engaged in early 2017 to provide insights into understanding the new administration" but that it received no legal or lobbying services from Cohen's firm.
AT&T said the contract ended in December 2017.
Korea Aerospace Industries did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Nathan Layne; Additional reporting by Tim Ahmann and Diane Bartz in Washington; Editing by Peter Cooney and Howard Goller)
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