Courtesy of Pam Martens
Michael Cohen Leaves Federal Court in Manhattan, April 16, 2018
The intrepid investigative reporter, Ronan Farrow, who has a shiny new Pulitzer on his shelf for his investigations into Harvey Weinstein, published an article last night at The New Yorker that should alarm every American. It turns out that it was a law enforcement official who leaked the confidential government file on Donald Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen out of concern that someone in the government was making other undisclosed files on Michael Cohen’s funny money transactions involving an additional $3 million disappear.
Cable news has breathlessly been reporting for days now on the financial file that the law enforcement official leaked to Michael Avenatti, attorney for porn star Stormy Daniels, who was paid $130,000 from Cohen’s secret account – a limited liability corporation established in Delaware with the name Essential Consultants LLC. (“Essential” suggesting that if you want the President’s ear, you have to pay his attorney a lot of money.)
Cohen established his bank account for Essential Consultants LLC at First Republic Bank – where Trump’s friend of 30 years, Tom Barrack, served on the Board of Directors. Barrack was also Chair of Trump’s Inaugural Committee, under scrutiny itself for funny money doings.
The file leaked to Avenatti came from the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) database where banks and Wall Street brokerage firms are mandated to file Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs).
The one SAR located by the law enforcement official and provided to Avenatti revealed that $500,000 came into Cohen’s First Republic Bank account from Columbus Nova, a company tied to the Russian oligarch, Viktor Vekselberg, who is now on a U.S. sanctions list and closely tied to Russian president Vladimir Putin. Another $600,000 came from U.S. telecommunications company AT&T; $1.2 million came from Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis; and $150,000 came from Korea Aerospace Industries in November 2017, “the same month President Trump visited South Korea” and while “the company was lobbying for a controversial multibillion-dollar contract with the U.S. Air Force,” reports Farrow.
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