--- title: Essential Consultants Could Get Michael Cohen in Trouble description: Payments made to Michael Cohen have raised a new set of legal and ethical issues canonical: https://time.com/5271745/michael-cohen-essential-consultants-donald-trump/ author: Alana Abramson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-05-09T21:18:43.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-30T12:34:37.481Z article:section: Politics og:title: Here's How Essential Consultants Could Get Michael Cohen in Legal Trouble og:description: "There's certainly a corruption angle here." og:url: https://time.com/5271745/michael-cohen-essential-consultants-donald-trump/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt83a65a12a0f1d9bd/69892d76db2987460025f5bc/ap18102170338005.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2874 og:image:height: 1617 og:image:alt: Michael Cohen og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Here's How Essential Consultants Could Get Michael Cohen in Legal Trouble twitter:description: "There's certainly a corruption angle here." twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt83a65a12a0f1d9bd/69892d76db2987460025f5bc/ap18102170338005.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Here's How Essential Consultants Could Get Michael Cohen in Legal Trouble > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=8877ec93-91ad-479e-8459-f976fe3a357b&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) by [Alana Abramson](https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/) and [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/) May 9, 2018 9:18 PM UTC  Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's personal attorney, walks along a sidewalk in New York on April 11, 2018. Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's personal attorney, walks along a sidewalk in New York on April 11, 2018. Seth Wenig—AP by [Alana Abramson](https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/) and [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/) May 9, 2018 9:18 PM UTC [Payments made to Michael Cohen](http://time.com/5271000/michael-cohen-essential-consultants-novartis-vekselberg-att/) from a firm linked to a Russian oligarch and U.S. companies lobbying the government have raised a new set of legal and ethical issues for President Donald Trump’s longtime personal attorney. Michael Avenatti, the attorney for porn star Stormy Daniels, who is suing both Cohen and Trump, released documents Tuesday evening alleging that Essential Consultants LLC, the company Cohen had set up to pay his client to stay quiet about her affair with Trump, had also received over $4 million in payments from [AT&T](http://fortune.com/fortune500/att/), Novartis and Korea Aerospace, as well as a company linked to Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg. The payments were largely confirmed by three news outlets and the companies themselves. Legal experts say that more facts have to emerge about Cohen’s contacts with these companies before the legal ramifications can really be teased out. But they said he potentially violated the Lobbying Disclosure Act by failing to register as a lobbyist and could come under scrutiny for bank fraud and possible campaign contributions from foreign donors. “There’s certainly a corruption angle here,” Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor, told TIME. “What was Michael Cohen doing for that money? He doesn’t appear to have any set of skills that can answer \[that\].” “It’s important that we be fair and measured but it sure looks suspicious,” said Norm Eisen, who served as ethics czar in the Obama Administration and is currently the chairman of Citizen for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. **Read More:** [_Everything We Know About Essential Consultants_](http://time.com/5271000/michael-cohen-essential-consultants-novartis-vekselberg-att/) Larry Noble, Senior Director and General Counsel of the Campaign Legal Center, explained that, in order for Cohen to have actually violated the Lobbying Disclosure Act, there would need to be proof that Cohen specifically tried to lobby the government on behalf of these companies. If he did that and failed to register as a lobbyist then he would have violated the Lobbying Disclosure Act. “The problem is it depends on the specific facts. But looking at the bigger picture on it, as far as Michael Cohen goes, the question would be did he contact the government?” said Noble. But, Noble cautioned, if these companies simply used Cohen for [information about Trump](http://time.com/5271646/donald-trump-michael-cohen-rudy-giuliani/), that may not be a violation, although it certainly doesn’t look good from an ethics standpoint. “It looks like somebody just profiting off of Trump. And I think thats’ what bothers people about it. It just seems possibly a way of buying access,” he said. And its the ethical issues that will persist, even if there are ultimately no legal quandaries. “I can’t imagine in what world you think that’s a good idea,” said Noble. “The only thing I can come up with is it’s a reflection of Trump and the people he has around him, and their view of ethical issues – that they just don’t consider them.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5271745/michael-cohen-essential-consultants-donald-trump/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5271745/michael-cohen-essential-consultants-donald-trump/"},"headline":"Here's How Essential Consultants Could Get Michael Cohen in Legal Trouble","datePublished":"2018-05-09T21:18:43.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-30T12:34:37.481Z","description":"\"There's certainly a corruption angle here\"","url":"https://time.com/5271745/michael-cohen-essential-consultants-donald-trump/","keywords":["Donald Trump","russia","White House","justice","onetime","Russia Investigation","michael cohen"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt83a65a12a0f1d9bd/69892d76db2987460025f5bc/ap18102170338005.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alana Abramson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/"},{"@type":"Person","name":"Tessa Berenson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt83a65a12a0f1d9bd/69892d76db2987460025f5bc/ap18102170338005.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Michael Cohen","caption":"Michael Cohen","creditText":"Seth Wenig—AP","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/donald-trump/","name":"Donald Trump"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5271745/michael-cohen-essential-consultants-donald-trump/","name":"Here's How Essential Consultants Could Get Michael Cohen in Legal Trouble"}}]}] ```