Dan Mangan at CNBC:
Drug giant Novartis paid President Donald Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen more than $1 million for work that he actually ended up being "unable" to do, the company said Wednesday.
Novartis said that a month after Trump was inaugurated as president in January 2017, it signed a one-year contract with Cohen's shell company, Essential Consultants that paid it $100,000 per month.
Novartis said it believed Cohen "could advise the company as to how the Trump administration might approach certain U.S. health-care policy matters, including the Affordable Care Act."
But just a month after signing the deal, Novartis executives had their first meeting with Cohen, and afterward "determined that Michael Cohen and Essentials Consultants would be unable to provide the services that Novartis had anticipated."
But Novartis kept paying Cohen, despite that.
"As the contract, unfortunately, could only be terminated for cause, payments continued to be made until the contract expired by its own terms in February 2018," Novartis said.
And now Novartis claims they hired Mr. Cohen for “healthcare” matters (they paid him approx $1 Million). Wow - he’s a doctor as well!! Very talented guy this Mr. Cohen. #basta— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) May 9, 2018
