ISTOCK/HOHLNovartis reportedly paid Essential Consultants, a company run by President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen, $1.2 million, but has since ended a contract with the firm, according to Reuters.
The drug company entered into the agreement with Essential Consultants in February 2017 because it “believed that Michael Cohen could advise the company as to how the Trump administration might approach certain U.S. healthcare policy matters, including the Affordable Care Act,” Novartis spokeswoman Sofina Mirza-Reid tells The Washington Post.
Michael Avenatti, a lawyer for a porn star who received $130,000 from Essential Consultants as hush money after having an alleged affair with Trump before he became president, recently revealed the connection between Cohen’s company and Novartis’s payments. Documents linked to by STAT show that a unit of the drug firm called Novartis Investment SARL made about four payments of nearly $100,000 each to Essential Consultants on October 5, 2017, November 3, 2017, December 1, 2017, ...
