AT&T just incriminated itself, Trump, and Michael Cohen in huge pay-for-play scandal

NBC News just confirmed the financial data behind superlawyer Michael Avenatti’s release of the Stormy Cohen Dossier (embedded below) which explains why the FBI raided Trump’s personal lawyer.

Also, American telecom giant AT&T has just confirmed that they slipped $200,000 in cash – without any specified duties – to Essential Consultants, LLC, a Delaware company controlled by President Trump’s personal lawyer.

Michael Cohen’s shady hush-money company got that payoff for “insights into understanding the new administration.” Trump’s personal lawyer “was one of several firms we engaged in early 2017 to provide insights into understanding the new administration,” AT&T told CNBC, adding, “They did no legal or lobbying work for us, and the contract ended in December 2017.”

AT&T is currently attempting to merge with Time Warner in a megadeal opposed by the Department of Justice’s lawyers, who recently argued that the telecom giant is asking the court to re-write the law on mergers to accommodate them.

Michael Cohen took AT&T’s payments beginning after the inauguration and ending late last year, around the time Politico reported on Trump’s tweets about merger partner Time Warner’s CNN cable news network.

AT&T is the second major that confirmed payment to Michael Cohen, now that The Daily Beast has nailed down that Trump’s personal lawyer did, in fact, take money from Victor Vekselberg, the now-sanctioned Russian oligarch who used to be business partners with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross at the Bank of Cyprus.

It’s been a bad week for Cohen already, with Bloomberg reporting today that he mortgaged his family’s expensive Park Avenue apartment as collateral for his failing taxi business.

Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani is busy telling the world on live television that Cohen’s hush money deal with Stormy Daniels – which brought about the wrath of Avenatti and eventually today’s dossier – concealed all manner of felony election crimes.

Rudy’s frequent appearances since falling into that hole on Fox’s Trump-friendly Hannity Show have only continued to dig Trump’s legal defense against Stormy Daniels into a bigger ditch.

After Giuliani’s open declaration that the President can hide behind the Fifth Amendment, even Trump might be thinking about cutting him off after 19 days of representation. Of course, Rudy is telling NBC that Trump is encouraging him to seek out more media appearances to the open delight of Michael Avenatti who invited a televised debate.

It’s no wonder that the Trump-aligned National Enquirer – who engaged in a “catch and kill” deal during the election to silence Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal, who carried out her affair with the President simultaneously to his dalliance with Stormy Daniels – is already presumptively writing Michael Cohen’s public epitaph as a snitch.

The National Enquirer is also caught in the Cohen investigation for that catch and kill, and their relationship with both Trump and his personal lawyer.

This afternoon’s revelation of the Stormy Cohen Dossier about the President’s personal lawyer taking in huge amounts of cash funneled through shady hush money company adds an entirely more corrupt angle to Trump’s outrageously awful administration.

Avenatti’s revelations raise the specter of Cohen cutting direct quid pro quo deals to sell off American policy through his client Trump for cold hard cash.

Now, NBC has confirmed that the factual data of the Stormy Cohen Dossier checks out, which means that President Trump’s fears about the incredible seriousness of the New York investigation are well founded in fact.

Read more about Superlawyer Michael Avenatti’s Stormy Cohen Dossier here: 

Grant Stern

Editor at Large

is the Executive Editor of Occupy Democrats and published author. His new Meet the Candidates 2020 book series is distributed by Simon and Schuster. He's also a mortgage broker, community activist and radio personality in Miami, Florida., as well as the producer of the Dworkin Report podcast. Grant is also an occasional contributor to Raw Story, Alternet, and the DC Report, an unpaid senior advisor to the Democratic Coalition, and a Director of Sunshine Agenda Inc. a government transparency nonprofit organization. Get all of his stories sent directly to your inbox here: