Tag Archives: pay to play

The Baltimore Sun reports: Health provider Kaiser Permanente paid Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh more than $100,000 to buy about 20,000 copies of her “Healthy Holly” children’s books during a period when the company was seeking a lucrative contract to provide health benefits to city employees. Kaiser confirmed Monday to The Baltimore Sun that it paid approximately $114,000 for the books …

The Wall Street Journal reports: A major donor to President Trump agreed to pay $10 million to the president’s then-personal attorney if he successfully helped obtain funding for a nuclear-power project, including a $5 billion loan from the U.S. government, according to people familiar with the matter. The donor, Franklin L. Haney, gave the contract to Trump attorney Michael Cohen …

Mediaite reports: Cellular provider T-Mobile is paying for advice from former Donald Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski on their upcoming merger with Sprint, according to a Wall Street Journal report. On Thursday, T-Mobile announced that it hired Turnberry Solutions back in August to help secure federal approval of the merging of the two companies in a takeover deal. Along with …

RNC spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany today confirmed that Michael Cohen is still their Deputy Finance Chairman despite weeks of revelations about Cohen’s lucrative attempts to sell access to the White House. Mediaite reports: The RNC spokesman confirmed the news today while speaking to Cheddar correspondent and Mediaite alum J.D. Durkin. McEnany also brushed off the fact that Cohen has been raided …

The Daily Beast reports: Monday, the Associated Press reported on the months-long 2017 lobbying effort carried out by Elliot Broidy and George Nader that brought the pair close to securing nearly $1 billion in contracts with the Saudis and the Emiratis in exchange for lobbying against their enemy, Qatar. Also during the pair’s lobbying blitz in the fall of 2017, …

Bloomberg reports: China’s second-largest state-owned bank offered wealthy clients the opportunity to have dinner with the American president for $150,000 a ticket, spurring a complaint from Donald Trump’s re-election campaign to the U.S. Department of Justice. A branch of China Construction Bank Corp. invited high-net-worth clients willing to pay the ticket price to a May 31 dinner in Dallas, according …

The New York Times reports: The company controlled by the family of the White House adviser Jared Kushner is close to receiving a bailout of its financially troubled flagship building by a company with ties to the government of Qatar, according to executives briefed on the deal. Charles Kushner, head of the Kushner Companies, is in advanced talks with Brookfield …

USA Today reports: The president’s income from his company’s hotel in Washington, D.C. topped $40 million last year, according to a copy of his annual financial disclosure report released on Wednesday, making the property a clear winner among a portfolio which showed mixed results. The Trump International Hotel, located less than one mile from the White House, has emerged a …

The Washington Post reports: Michael Cohen, President Trump’s personal attorney, solicited a payment of at least $1 million from the government of Qatar in late 2016, in exchange for access to and advice about the then-incoming administration, according to several people with knowledge of the episode. The offer, which Qatar declined, came on the margins of a Dec. 12 meeting …

Ronan Farrow reports at The New Yorker: Last week, several news outlets obtained financial records showing that Michael Cohen, President Trump’s personal attorney, had used a shell company to receive payments from various firms with business before the Trump Administration. In the days since, there has been much speculation about who leaked the confidential documents, and the Treasury Department’s inspector …

The New York Times reports: President Trump’s financial disclosure, released on Wednesday, revealed for the first time that he paid more than $100,000 to his personal attorney, Michael D. Cohen, as reimbursement for payment to a third-party. The disclosure, released by the Office of Government Ethics, did not specify the purpose of the payment. However, Mr. Cohen has paid $130,000 …

CNN Money reports: The top lawyer at Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis stepped down on Wednesday following revelations that the company made payments to President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen. Novartis (NVS) said its general counsel, Felix Ehrat, had decided to retire from his position in the “context of discussions” surrounding the payments to Cohen. Cohen’s company Essential Consultants had …

The Washington Post reports: The president vents to associates about the FBI raids on his personal attorney Michael Cohen — as often as “20 times a day,” in the estimation of one confidant — and they frequently listen in silence, knowing little they say will soothe him. Trump gripes that he needs better “TV lawyers” to defend him on cable …

The Wall Street Journal reports: Mr. Cohen’s pitch was blunt. He would tell prospective clients — large corporations worried about their lack of connections to President Donald Trump’s administration — that he didn’t know who was advising them, but that the companies “should fire them all,” a person familiar with Mr. Cohen’s approach said. “I have the best relationship with …

CNN reports: Rudy Giuliani just contradicted the White House and the Justice Department on a very sensitive subject: The AT&T-Time Warner deal. All along, the government has said that President Trump was not involved in blocking the $85 billion bid. Lawyers and White House aides have batted away speculation about improper political interference. But on Friday night, Giuliani cast new …

The Wall Street Journal reports: Michael Cohen, who has served as President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, made an overture to provide consulting services to Ford Motor Co. in January 2017, but was quickly rebuffed, people familiar with the matter said. Mr. Cohen, touting his proximity to the president, contacted Ford’s office in Washington D.C.—an approach that Special Counsel Robert Mueller …

The New York Times reports: Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, dined last year in Rome with Cardinal George Pell, a prominent climate-science denialist and Vatican leader who was also facing sexual abuse allegations. The E.P.A. later released official descriptions of the dinner that intentionally did not mention the cardinal’s presence, according to three current and former …

Politico reports: Michael Cohen, the embattled longtime personal attorney to President Donald Trump, is no longer playing an active role representing Trump, according to one of the president’s newest lawyers, Rudy Giuliani. “As far as we know, he’s not,” Giuliani told POLITICO in an interview Friday. “And there’d be nothing for him to do right now.” Trump as recently as …

The Washington Post reports: Three days after President Trump was sworn into office, the telecom giant AT&T turned to his personal attorney Michael Cohen for help on a wide portfolio of issues pending before the federal government — including the company’s proposed merger with Time Warner, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. The internal documents reveal for the …

STAT News reports: The curious relationship between one of the world’s biggest drug makers and President Trump’s personal lawyer began early last year when Michael Cohen, a longtime fixer for the president, reached out to Novartis’s then-chief executive officer Joe Jimenez, promising help gaining access to Trump and influential officials in the new administration, according to an employee inside Novartis …