Federal prosecutors on Friday provided new details on the extent of former Donald Trump fixer Michael Cohen’s attempts to cash in on his access to President Trump, detailing more than $4 million that Cohen extracted from major corporations in return for his supposed insight into White House policy making.
According to prosecutors, Cohen, who has pleaded guilty to eight federal criminal charges, immediately sought to monetize his connections to Trump in the wake of his former boss’ 2016 election victory.
“Cohen successfully convinced numerous major corporations to retain him as a ‘consultant’ who could provide unique insights about and access to the new administration,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo filed on Friday. “Some of these corporations were then stuck making large up-front or periodic payments to Cohen, even though he provided little or no real services under these contracts. Bank records reflect that Cohen made more than $4 million dollars before the contracts were terminated.”
Among Cohen’s confirmed consulting clients were telecom giant AT&T, Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis, and Columbus Nova, the investment fund linked to Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg.
But Cohen had at least one more previously unreported and politically connected associate.
Two individuals familiar with the relationship told The Daily Beast that Cohen met Imaad Zuberi, a venture capitalist and a major Obama donor, in 2016 several times throughout the year and into 2017. Those sources said Zuberi initially spoke with Cohen about attending Trump’s inauguration in January 2017 and inquired about access to high-level events. Zuberi was told that he would need to pay upward of $1 million to attend the events, where he would rub shoulders with senior administration officials including President-elect Trump himself.
Zuberi donated more than $900,000 to the inaugural committee and corresponded with Cohen directly about that donation, according to sources with first-hand knowledge of those conversations.
Post a Comment