Mueller’s Team Questioned Swiss Drug Company Over Payments To Trump Lawyer

Last month, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on Russians including Vekselberg and his Renova Group that were meant to punish Russia for actions in Crimea, Ukraine and Syria, and for attempts to subvert Western democracies.

CNN reported on Tuesday that Mueller questioned Vekselberg about the payments to Cohen.

“Novartis cooperated fully with the special counsel’s office and provided all the information requested”, the company said in a statement. Cohen came under investigation by federal prosecutors after arranging a $130,000 payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, to keep her from disclosing an alleged sexual relationship with Trump.

“We now have multiple different things supposedly that Michael Cohen was doing for all these companies”, Avenatti said. Avenatti added that the payments occurred from January to August 2017. He has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

Cohen has reportedly termed the document released by Avenatti “inaccurate”, but the facts about payments in the document have been confirmed by independent news organizations including the New York Times, and several of the companies that made the payments, including Novartis.

Vekselberg, who founded Renova in 1990 and accumulated interests in Russia’s oil, gas and aluminum industries, is Russia’s fifth-richest person with a net worth of $15.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Exactly two weeks earlier, the USA intelligence community released its big report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. Trump has repeatedly vowed to curb rising drug prices and once said that companies were “getting away with murder”.

A Swiss pharmaceutical company acknowledged on Wednesday that it was contacted late previous year by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office about payments to Michael Cohen, the personal attorney for Donald Trump.

On Wednesday, Avenatti took to Twitter to encourage media outlets to investigate the alleged SARs filed on Cohen’s Essential Consulting. Columbus Nova retained him as a consultant soon afterward. An attorney for Vekselberg did not respond to a request for comment, nor did representatives for his company in Russian Federation.

Kendall Coffey, a former U.S. Attorney, said the most likely explanation behind the payments to Cohen is that he was perceived to be someone very close to the newly elected President at a time when most of the traditional Washington insiders had either avoided or opposed Trump during the campaign.

Avenatti said he finds it “hard to believe” that Trump didn’t know what Cohen was up to.

Trump was inaugurated on January 20. Providing political intelligence isn’t illegal.

President Donald Trump’s personal attorney reportedly offered up his $9 million NY apartment as collateral for millions of dollars of debt due to the decline of his taxi medallion business. He was paid 0,000 per month.

And it’s not like Cohen wouldn’t have known Columbus Nova had ties to Russians.

Colbert noted the allegations made by Daniels that her affair with Trump happened just four months after Melania Trump had given birth to their son Barron.

Lamesa Investments Ltd, an affiliate of Renova, acquired a large stake in the Bank of Cyprus at the same time Wilbur Ross, then a private equity investor, made a capital infusion into the then-struggling bank. Vekselberg attended Trump’s inauguration with Andrew Intrater, his cousin and the head of Columbus Nova.