Novartis Paid Cohen Firm Nearly Four Times More Than Actual Lobbyists

on April 26, 2018 in New York City.
NEW YORK, NY - APRIL 26: Michael Cohen, longtime personal lawyer and confidante for President Donald Trump, arrives at the United States District Court Southern District of New York on April 26, 2018 in New York Cit... NEW YORK, NY - APRIL 26: Michael Cohen, longtime personal lawyer and confidante for President Donald Trump, arrives at the United States District Court Southern District of New York on April 26, 2018 in New York City. Cohen and lawyers representing President Trump are asking the court to block Justice Department officials from reading documents and materials related to his Cohen's relationship with President Trump that they believe should be protected by attorney-client privilege. Officials with the FBI, armed with a search warrant, recently raided Cohen's office and two private residences. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) MORE LESS
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

The Swiss pharmaceutical company that paid President Trump’s personal lawyer $1.2 million in 2017 for access to the President, paid Michael Cohen nearly four times more than any of the actual lobbyists it employs to garner influence in Washington.

According to a Stat News review of Novartis’ 2017 and 2018 filing the Swiss drug company has spent $11.92 million on formal federal lobbying since Trump came into office, but none of the contracts with nearly four dozen lobbying firms were as expensive as the one it brokered with Cohen’s shell company Essential Consultants LLC.

Novartis did pay one single firm $80,000 in one quarter since Trump’s inauguration, a payment that doesn’t hold a candle to the $100,000 a month Cohen required. The contract in closest competition with the Cohen deal was with PricewaterhouseCoopers, which Novartis paid $950,000 in 2017, according to Stat News.

Stat News noted Novartis does not have to disclose how much it pays its eight in-house lobbyists.

Read the full report here.

Latest Livewire

Notable Replies

  1. Avatar for fgs fgs says:

    It’s pretty bad when the payer of the bribe openly complains about insufficient ROI.
    I’m sort of curious what drug approval they needed “help” with. Probably some $1,000 per month injection to marginally improve some secondary measure to go up against $5 generics that have actually been proven to reduce mortality.

  2. The amount of the payments also belie any claim that Trump himself was not involved. Zero plausible deniability. There is no way Taxi Medallion Buying Brooklyn Ambulance Chaser Michael Cohen was getting this amount of money from a Pharma Giant without a wink from El Donald.

  3. So, was Cohen engaged in honest graft, or dishonest graft (i.e., grift). Did der Furor know about the payoff, or not. Did he get a piece of the payoff? Did he do anything for the payoff? All America wants to know!

  4. Please! That is “El Donaldo”!

  5. There is also no way that Novartis, or any large corporation, was paying this sort of money to Cohen without the belief that their money was not ultimately ending up in Trump’s pocket.

    Cohen is not a registered lobbyist, has zero experience in lobbying, or any governmental policy. The only thing he did have is access to Donald. If Cohen was charging 4x the going rate, it becomes very clear that this is an out and out pay to play scenario, and Trump is getting a cut. That’s the only reason a big MNC would make these payments.

    @old_curmudgeon just wait until they start getting to the disbursements from this slush fund. :wink:

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

22 more replies

Participants

Avatar for system1 Avatar for fgs Avatar for old_curmudgeon Avatar for smiley Avatar for thebigragu Avatar for daveyjones64 Avatar for alyoshakaramazov1 Avatar for sanni Avatar for ignoreland Avatar for bobt54 Avatar for careysub Avatar for dickweed Avatar for jacksonhts Avatar for tiowally

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: