FILE - In this Thursday, April 26, 2018, file photo, Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels' attorney, talks to reporters outside of federal court in New York. Avenatti says he has information showing that... (Associated Press) 
 
 WASHINGTON (AP) — Stormy Daniels' lawyer said Tuesday he has information showing that Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's longtime personal attorney, received $500,000 from a company associated with a Russian billionaire within months of paying hush money to Daniels, a porn star who claims she had an affair with Trump. 
 
 Lawyer Michael Avenatti also said hundreds of thousands of dollars streamed into Cohen's account from companies, including pharmaceutical giant Novartis, AT&T and Korea Aerospace, with U.S. government business interests. AT&T confirmed its connection Tuesday evening. 
 
 Avenatti did not reveal the source of his information or release documentation. But in a seven-page memo, Avenatti detailed what he said were wire transfers going into and out of the account Cohen used to pay Daniels $130,000 in October 2016 to stay silent about her alleged affair with the soon-to-be president. Trump denies having an affair with Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford. 
 
 Financial documents reviewed Tuesday by The Associated Press appeared to back up Avenatti's report. 
 
 The memo, containing highly specific dates and amounts, stated that Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian billionaire, and his cousin "routed" eight payments totaling approximately $500,000 to Cohen's company, Essential Consultants, between January and August 2017. The reason for the payment was not known. 
 
 Speculating without offering proof, the Avenatti memo said, "It appears these funds may have replenished the account following the payment to Ms. Clifford." 
 
 Avenatti's memo said the deposits into the account controlled by Cohen were made by Columbus Nova, an American investment company affiliated with the Renova Group, which is controlled by Vekselberg. 
 
 Columbus Nova's attorney Richard Owens stressed in a statement that the company is "solely owned and controlled by Americans" and said that, after Trump's inauguration, the firm hired Cohen as a business consultant "regarding potential sources of capital and potential investments in real estate and other ventures," but that it had nothing to do with Vekselberg. 
 
 Owens said any suggestion that Vekselberg used Columbus Nova as a conduit for payments to Cohen was false. "Neither Viktor Vekselberg nor anyone else, other than Columbus Nova's owners, were involved in the decision to hire Cohen or provided funding for his engagement," he said. 
 
 Cohen and his attorney did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Cohen is currently under investigation by federal prosecutors in New York, but hasn't been charged. 
 
 At the time of the payments, there was an active FBI counterintelligence investigation — which special counsel Robert Mueller took over last May — into Russian election interference and any possible coordination with Trump associates. 
 
 Vekselberg was targeted for U.S. sanctions by the Trump administration last month. He built his fortune, currently estimated by Forbes at $14.6 billion, by investing in the aluminum and oil industries. More recently, he has expanded his assets to include industrial equipment and high technology. 
 
 Offering confirmation for more of the payments, AT&T said in a statement that Essential Consultants was one of several firms it "engaged in early 2017 to provide insights into understanding the new administration." 
 
 Avenatti alleged that the company made four $50,000 payments to Cohen totaling $200,000 in late 2017 and early 2018. 
 
 AT&T said Cohen's company "did no legal or lobbying work for us, and the contract ended in December 2017." Cohen is not a registered lobbyist, according to public records. 
 
 Such a confidential relationship would not violate federal lobbying laws if Cohen did not seek to influence Trump on the companies' behalf. But hiring the president's personal attorney for advice on how to woo Trump would be highly unusual, especially given that Cohen was never formally involved in the campaign or Trump's administration. 
 
 Making the arrangement even stranger, the blue-chip companies' payments to Cohen were routed to Essential Consultants LLC — the same company Cohen used to buy Stormy Daniels' silence about her alleged affair with the President. 
 
 Trump's Justice Department has sued to block AT&T from an $85 billion merger with Time Warner, saying it would hurt competition and consumers would have to pay more to watch their favorite shows. 
 
 Korea Aerospace, which is alleged to have paid Cohen $150,000 in November 2017, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for Novartis, a multinational pharmaceutical company, could not confirm or deny the payment, but said any agreements with Essential Consultants were entered before the company's current CEO took over in February of this year and have since expired. 
 
 The memo alleges the company paid Cohen $399,920 in late 2017 and early 2018 in four payments — each amounting to $99,980. 
 
 Trump had dinner with Novartis' soon-to-be CEO Vasant Narasimhan, along with other European executives, at the World Economic Forum in Davos shortly after the date of the final payment. 
 
 Larry Noble, senior director of the Campaign Legal Center, said there's nothing technically wrong with companies like Novartis and AT&T hiring people like Cohen to provide insight into the president's thinking. But he said the arrangement described by Avenatti "certainly doesn't look good." 
 
 "Why would you go to the president's private fixer?" he asked. "He's not known for policy and he's not in the administration. You're going to someone who can get you access and tell you about the person of the president. That's unusual." 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press writers Chad Day and Jeff Horwitz in Washington, Jake Pearson in New York and Mike Balsamo in Los Angeles contributed to this report. ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. 
 
 / Updated By Sarah Fitzpatrick, Tracy Connor, Tom Winter and Ben Collins 
 
 Stormy Daniels' attorney claimed Tuesday that President Donald Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen received $500,000 from a company controlled by a Russian oligarch, deposited into an account for a company also used to pay off the adult film actress. 
 
 Daniels' attorney, Michael Avenatti, also detailed other transactions he said were suspicious, including deposits from drug giant Novartis, the state-run Korea Aerospace Industries, and AT&T. 
 
 Novartis confirmed it had paid Cohen's company, Essential Consultants, and said Special Counsel Robert Mueller had inquired about the arrangement in November. AT&T also confirmed it paid Cohen's company, for "insights" into the Trump administration. 
 
 Avenatti's claims, made in a dossier posted to Twitter, could suggest a new dimension to the federal investigation into Cohen. NBC News has reviewed financial documents that appear to support Avenatti’s account of the transactions. 
 
 "This thing is a pig and they can try to put lipstick on a pig — tonight, next week, next month — but it's still gonna be a pig," Avenatti said on MSNBC's "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell." 
 
 "This thing's ugly and it's gonna get worse." 
 
 Cohen disputed Avenatti's accounting but provided no details. 
 
 "His document is inaccurate," he said as he left a Manhattan hotel and got into a cab Wednesday morning. 
 
 Avenatti said his investigation uncovered that $4.4 million flowed through a First Republic account linked to Essential Consultants between October 2016 and January 2018. Essential Consultants is the company Cohen created before the 2016 election and then used to wire $130,000 to Daniels to stop her from going public with her account of an alleged sexual affair with Trump a decade ago. 
 
 In particular, Avenatti identified eight transactions between January and August 2017, totaling half a million dollars, from U.S.-based Columbus Nova, which he said is controlled by Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg and Vekselberg's cousin Andrew Intrater. 
 
 In a statement, an attorney for Columbus Nova said the management firm is owned and controlled by Americans and not Vekselberg, who is the president of the Russian conglomerate Renovo Group. 
 
 "After the inauguration, the firm hired Michael Cohen as a business consultant regarding potential sources of capital and potential investments in real estate and other ventures," the Columbus Nova statement said. 
 
 "Reports today that Viktor Vekselberg used Columbus Nova as a conduit for payments to Michael Cohen are false. The claim that Viktor Vekselberg was involved or provided any funding for Columbus Nova's engagement of Michael Cohen is patently untrue. 
 
 "Neither Viktor Vekselberg nor anyone else other than Columbus Nova's owners, were involved in the decision to hire Cohen or provided funding for his engagement." 
 
 This thing is a pig and they can try to put lipstick on a pig — tonight, next week, next month — but it's still gonna be a pig. 
 
 Columbus Nova was listed on the website of the Renova Group as one of its "companies" until November 2017. Renova's website is now listed as "under construction," but older versions remain on The Wayback Machine, which creates archives of sites across the web. 
 
 In a statement, Columbus Nova's attorney said the firm "has managed assets on behalf of Renova Group companies and other clients. Columbus Nova itself is not now, and has never been, owned by any foreign entity or person including Viktor Vekselberg or the Renova Group." 
 
 A review of public election filings shows that the CEO of Columbus Nova, Andrew Intrater, made several political donations over the past two years. 
 
 According to public record filings he donated $29,600 to the Republican National Committee in June 2017, $35,000 to the Trump Victory PAC the same month, and then $250,000 to the Trump Inauguration Fund. Columbus Nova has also registered many alt-right internet domains, though the domains return an error message. 
 
 Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Renova Group Board Chairman and Skolkovo Foundation President Viktor Vekselberg at the Kremlin in Moscow on March 14, 2017. Alexei Nikolsky / TASS via Getty Images file 
 
 Vekselberg questioned by Mueller probe investigators 
 
 As the New York Times first reported last week, citing people familiar with the matter, agents working for Special Counsel Mueller searched and questioned Vekselberg as he got off a private plane in the New York area earlier this year. 
 
 Vekselberg — one of the richest men in Russia, with a fortune from aluminum and oil — also attended a much-discussed 2015 dinner in Moscow where Michael Flynn, soon to become Trump's national security adviser, was seated next to Russian President Vladimir Putin. 
 
 Vekselberg, who was among the Russian oligarchs sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department last month, has not been accused of wrongdoing in connection with either Mueller's investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election or a separate probe of Cohen by the U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan. 
 
 He could not be reached for immediate comment. 
 
 Avenatti also said he had uncovered: 
 
 Four payments of just under $100,000 made by Novartis to Essential in late 2017 and early 2018. He noted reports that said Trump met with Novartis' CEO in January 2018. In a statement, Novartis said it had a one-year agreement with Essential Consultants, "focused on U.S. healthcare policy matters," that expired in February. It was contacted in November by Mueller's office and "cooperated fully," it said. 
 
 AT&T made four payments of $50,000 each to Essential in late 2017 and early 2018. In a statement, AT&T said it engaged the firm in early 2017 to "provide insights into understanding the new administration. They did no legal or lobbying work for us, and the contract ended in December 2017.” 
 
 Korea Aerospace Industries made a $150,000 payment to Essential in November 2017. KAI did not respond to requests for comment. 
 
 Nicholas Biase, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan, declined to comment on Avenatti’s report and declined to confirm its authenticity. First Republic also declined comment. 
 
 The White House has said Trump denies having an affair with Daniels, and Cohen has said he himself put up the $130,000 she was given in a non-disclosure agreement. One of Trump's new attorneys, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, said last week that Trump repaid the money to Cohen. ||||| Michael Cohen, a longtime lawyer for President Trump, was reportedly hired last year by the U.S.-based affiliate of a Russian billionaire with close ties to Russian President Vladi­mir Putin. (Seth Wenig/AP) 
 
 President Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen was hired last year by the U.S.-based affiliate of a Russian business magnate who attended Trump’s inauguration and was recently subjected to sanctions by the U.S. government, the company said Tuesday. 
 
 The New York investment firm Columbus Nova said it retained Cohen as a consultant “regarding potential sources of capital and potential investments in real estate and other ventures.” Though Columbus Nova has been described in federal regulatory filings as an affiliate of the Renova Group, founded by Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, the company said Vekselberg was not involved with hiring or paying Cohen. 
 
 The company’s confirmation came after Michael Avenatti, a lawyer for adult-film actress Stormy Daniels, circulated on Twitter a document purporting to show a detailed accounting of wire transfers made to Essential Consultants, a company established by Cohen in October 2016. 
 
 The payments listed in the document began in the months after Cohen paid $130,000 to Daniels just before the November 2016 election, as part of an agreement that required her to not speak publicly about an affair she says she had with Trump a decade earlier. 
 
 In the document, Avenatti claims that Cohen received $500,000 from Columbus Nova between January 2017 and August 2017. 
 
 Avenatti did not provide supporting documentation for his claims, though Columbus Nova and AT&T;, another company named in the document, both released statements in the hours after Avenatti’s disclosure confirming that they had business relationships with Cohen. 
 
 Avenatti alleged that Vekselberg might have provided funds that “replenished the account” following Cohen’s payments to Daniels. In a statement, a spokesman for Vekselberg said neither the Russian billionaire nor the Renova Group has any “contractual relationship” with Cohen. 
 
 [Analysis: How money flowed through Michael Cohen’s multipurpose shell company] 
 
 The payments from Columbus Nova point to a potential new financial tie between the president’s personal lawyer and a U.S. representative of a key Russian figure. Vekselberg, who is close to Russian President Vladi­mir Putin, was one of two dozen Russian business executives and government officials sanctioned in April as part of the U.S. response to the poisoning of a former Russian intelligence officer in southern England. 
 
 Columbus Nova hired Cohen as U.S. investigators were ramping up their inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election. The chief executive of the U.S. affiliate is Vekselberg’s cousin, Andrew Intrater, a U.S. citizen who donated $250,000 to Trump’s inauguration and made additional contributions to a Trump campaign committee and to the Republican National Committee. 
 
 More broadly, the revelations show that companies with business interests before the U.S. government hired Cohen, a longtime Trump associate, by paying him through Essential Consultants, which he also used to pay Daniels before the election. 
 
 The document from Avenatti says AT&T; paid Cohen $50,000 a month for four months starting in October 2017, just weeks before Trump’s Justice Department filed suit to block AT&T;’s acquisition of Time Warner. 
 
 A spokesman for AT&T; confirmed that the company engaged Essential Consultants, a company formed by Cohen in early 2017, “to provide insights into understanding the new administration.” 
 
 “They did no legal or lobbying work for us, and the contract ended in December 2017,” the spokesman added. 
 
 Cohen was receiving payments from Columbus Nova during the same months that Trump attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani has said Trump was paying Cohen $35,000 a month in legal fees. 
 
 Giuliani has said Trump’s money served as a reimbursement for the funds Cohen provided to Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford. 
 
 Stephen Ryan, a lawyer for Cohen, did not respond to requests for comment. 
 
 Cohen’s finances are of intense interest to federal authorities in New York, who last month served search warrants on his home, office and hotel room, gathering documents related to the Daniels payment as well as to Cohen’s personal businesses. 
 
 Cohen’s lawyers have fought in court to restrict prosecutors’ access to the material seized in those raids. As part of that legal fight, they told a judge that in 2017, Cohen had three legal clients and seven clients to whom he provided “strategic advice and business consulting.” 
 
 Avenatti’s document might provide a road map to those clients. He claims that Cohen also received payments from the drug company Novartis Investments and from Korea Aerospace Industries. Each has important business considerations with the U.S. government. 
 
 Shortly after the last transaction from Novartis identified by Avenatti, in January, Trump met with executives including the incoming CEO of Novartis, Vas Narasimhan, during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. 
 
 A Novartis spokesman said any agreements with Essential Consultants took place before the new CEO took over in February and have since expired. 
 
 Korea Aerospace is in contention for a multibillion-dollar joint contract with Lockheed Martin to produce jet trainers for the U.S. Air Force. A company representative confirmed paying the Cohen company, but said the payments were to provide legal consulting to assist in the company’s reorganization of its “internal accounting system” and did not involve the Air Force deal or other lobbying. 
 
 The company added that it learned only recently of Essential Consultants’ Trump ties. 
 
 In a Wednesday morning tweet, Avenatti said it was “priceless” to watch the various companies that paid Cohen try to explain their reasons for doing so. 
 
 “Watching all of the companies that sent money to the LLC slush fund come up with different alleged reasons for hiring Mr. Cohen — ‘accounting advice,’ ‘real estate consulting,’ ‘insight,’ etc. Who knew Mr. Cohen was such a brilliant renaissance man?” 
 
 Vekselberg is a Russian billionaire who regularly participates in gatherings of Russian business leaders with Putin and sometimes meets one on one with the Russian president, according to news accounts and people familiar with his role. 
 
 In March 2017, the two sat down to discuss infrastructure projects, according to Russian state news reports. Vekselberg funds several critically important prestige projects, including Skolkovo, the business incubator touted as Russia’s answer to Silicon Valley. 
 
 Vekselberg’s spokesman Andrey Shtorkh confirmed to The Washington Post in January that Vekselberg had attended Trump’s inauguration as a guest of one of his American business partners. 
 
 A person familiar with the inauguration said the partner was Intrater, and the New York Times has reported that Intrater and Vekselberg have both been interviewed by prosecutors working for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. 
 
 Two people familiar with Mueller’s probe told The Post that the special counsel is investigating whether foreign money helped fund Trump’s inauguration. By law, only U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents can donate to a U.S. inaugural committee. 
 
 In addition to Intrater’s donation to Trump’s inauguration, an additional $1 million to support the inauguration came from Access Industries, which was founded by Leonard Blavatnik, a Soviet-born American British billionaire who is a longtime friend and business associate of Vekselberg. 
 
 Shtorkh told The Post in January that Vekselberg had met the past three U.S. presidents as part of his efforts to expand Russia’s international economic relations but that this was the first time the magnate attended a presidential inauguration. 
 
 Photographs also show that Vekselberg attended a December 2015 dinner in Moscow to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Russian television network RT. Another attendee of the dinner, seated next to Putin, was Michael Flynn, who later became Trump’s national security adviser. 
 
 Alice Crites, Carol D. Leonnig, Beth Reinhard, Ashley Parker, Craig Timberg and John Wagner in Washington and Min Joo Kim in Seoul contributed to this report. ||||| (CNN) Special counsel Robert Mueller 's investigators have questioned a Russian oligarch about hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments his company's US affiliate made to President Donald Trump's personal attorney, Michael Cohen, after the election, according to a source familiar with the matter. 
 
 Viktor Vekselberg, chairman of asset manager Renova Group, is an oligarch close to Vladimir Putin, and last month the Trump administration placed him on a list of sanctioned Russians for activities including election interference. The purpose of the payments, which predate the sanctions, and the nature of the business relationship between Vekselberg and Cohen is unclear. 
 
 The scrutiny of the payments could add to the legal troubles for Cohen, whose home and office were raided last month as part of a criminal investigation by federal prosecutors in Manhattan. In court documents, the prosecutors said at least part of their inquiry stemmed from a referral from Mueller's office. 
 
 The questions asked of Vekselberg suggest that Mueller investigators have been examining some of Cohen's business relationships as part of the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Vekselberg is one of two Russian oligarchs the FBI stopped earlier this year after their private jets landed in New York-area airports as part of Mueller's investigation. 
 
 Investigators also asked Vekselberg about donations the head of his US affiliate made to Trump's inaugural fund and campaign funds, sources said. 
 
 The attorney for Stormy Daniels -- the porn star who received $130,000 to keep quiet about an alleged affair she had with Trump a decade ago -- produced information Tuesday evening that appears to add further details to CNN's reporting. Michael Avenatti alleged that Cohen received half a million dollars from a company affiliated with Vekselberg in the months after the presidential election. 
 
 Avenatti alleged the $500,000 went into the bank account for Essential Consultants, a shell company that Cohen set up before the election that was used to pay Daniels. Avenatti added that the payments occurred from January to August 2017. 
 
 CNN has reviewed documents that appear to show these payments. CNN has not independently authenticated the documents. 
 
 Prosecutors have not accused Cohen of wrongdoing in regard to the payments or any other business dealings. 
 
 What FBI agents wanted to know 
 
 FBI agents asked Vekselberg about payments his company's American affiliate, Columbus Nova, made to Cohen, according to one source. The Russian was questioned as well about $300,000 in political donations by Andrew Intrater, Vekselberg's American cousin who is the head of Columbus Nova, sources said. 
 
 Intrater was also questioned by Mueller's investigators, two sources told CNN. Last month, Vekselberg was placed on the US government's list of sanctioned individuals, prohibiting him from traveling to the US. 
 
 The payments occurred at the same time Cohen was trying to build a consulting and legal business after the election and around the time he left the Trump Organization. At that time, he was still Trump's personal lawyer. Even last month, as Trump responded to questions about the payment to Daniels, the President deferred to Cohen and said, "Michael is my attorney." 
 
 In court filings, Cohen's attorney said that Cohen has seven clients for whom he provides "strategic advice and business consulting." The attorney did not specify whether Columbus Nova was one of those clients. 
 
 After publication, Columbus Nova provided a statement from its attorney, Richard Owens. 
 
 "Columbus Nova is a management company solely owned and controlled by Americans," the statement said. "After the inauguration, the firm hired Michael Cohen as a business consultant regarding potential sources of capital and potential investments in real estate and other ventures. Reports today that Viktor Vekselberg used Columbus Nova as a conduit for payments to Michael Cohen are false. The claim that Viktor Vekselberg was involved or provided any funding for Columbus Nova's engagement of Michael Cohen is patently untrue. Neither Viktor Vekselberg nor anyone else other than Columbus Nova's owners, were involved in the decision to hire Cohen or provided funding for his engagement." 
 
 Later Tuesday, Eric Kosta, general counsel of Columbus Nova, sent this statement: "As the General Counsel of Columbus Nova, I can confirm that the company is 100% owned and controlled by Americans. Any suggestion that at any point in time Viktor Vekselberg or any of his companies owned or exercised any control over Columbus Nova is patently untrue." 
 
 Intrater did not respond to requests for comment. An attorney for Vekselberg did not respond to a request for comment, nor did representatives for his company in Russia. Cohen did not respond to a request for comment. 
 
 Prosecutors with the US attorney's office in Manhattan are investigating Cohen's personal financial dealings, including his taxi business and payments made to silence Daniels, sources have told CNN. The FBI raided Cohen's home, office and hotel room last month, seizing at least eight boxes of documents and more than a dozen electronic devices. Cohen's attorney said the inquiry was referred by Mueller's team. 
 
 Campaign donations under scrutiny 
 
 Vekselberg's cousin Intrater gave generously to support Trump. 
 
 He donated $250,000 to the Trump inauguration fund, $35,000 to the Trump Victory Fund, and $29,600 to the Republican National Committee in June 2017, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. 
 
 While it is illegal for foreigners to donate to US politics, Intrater is American. 
 
 However, the donations were a sharp increase from previous cycles and may raise questions for investigators. Intrater's only previous political donations included $1,200 to Democrat Bill Richardson's presidential run in 2008 and $2,600 in 2014 for Republican Chris Day's congressional race in New York. Renova Group donated between $50,000 and $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation, but it's not clear when the contribution occurred, according to the foundation's public list of donors. 
 
 Vekselberg may also be of interest to investigators because of his close ties to the Kremlin. He built his fortune following the collapse of the Soviet Union through a series of deals in the oil and gas sector. In 2004, he paid over $100 million to buy nine Faberge eggs from the American Forbes family, returning the second-largest collection of imperial eggs to Russia. Six years later, he was appointed by then-Russian president Dmitry Medvedev to lead the Skolkovo Innovation Center project, the Kremlin's answer to Silicon Valley. 
 
 From 2007 until March 2012, Vekselberg was a shareholder and chairman of the board of Rusal, the aluminum company controlled by Oleg Deripaska. Deripaska has business ties to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who has been indicted on fraud and tax related charges as part of Mueller's investigation. Manafort has pleaded not guilty. Deripaska, who also was added to the US sanctions list last month, has sued Manafort over a soured investment deal. 
 
 Lamesa Investments Ltd, an affiliate of Renova, acquired a large stake in the Bank of Cyprus at the same time Wilbur Ross, then a private equity investor, made a capital infusion into the then-struggling bank. Lamesa now holds a 9.2% stake in the Bank of Cyprus. Ross resigned from his position as vice chairman of the bank after he was confirmed as Trump's commerce secretary. 
 
 Vekselberg also attended the December 2015 dinner in Moscow for RT, the state-controlled television channel, where Michael Flynn, Trump's former national security adviser, sat beside Putin, according to NBC News. Flynn has pleaded guilty to lying about a call he had with the Russian ambassador during the presidential transition and is cooperating with the Mueller investigation. 
 
 Update: This story has been updated to include Columbus Nova's latest statement. ||||| A shell company that Michael D. Cohen used to pay hush money to a pornographic film actress received payments totaling more than $1 million from an American company linked to a Russian oligarch and several corporations with business before the Trump administration, according to documents and interviews. 
 
 Financial records reviewed by The New York Times show that Mr. Cohen, President Trump’s personal lawyer and longtime fixer, used the shell company, Essential Consultants L.L.C., for an array of business activities that went far beyond what was publicly known. Transactions adding up to at least $4.4 million flowed through Essential Consultants starting shortly before Mr. Trump was elected president and continuing to this January, the records show. 
 
 Among the previously unreported transactions were payments last year of about $500,000 from Columbus Nova, an investment firm in New York whose biggest client is a company controlled by Viktor Vekselberg, the Russian oligarch. A lawyer for Columbus Nova, in a statement on Tuesday, described the money as a consulting fee that had nothing to do with Mr. Vekselberg. 
 
 Other transactions described in the financial records include hundreds of thousands of dollars Mr. Cohen received from Fortune 500 companies with business before the Trump administration, as well as smaller amounts he paid for luxury expenses like a Mercedes-Benz and private club dues.
– Michael Cohen's legal woes appeared to deepen Tuesday night with a bombshell release from Stormy Daniels' attorney. According to financial records reviewed by the New York Times and NBC News, a company linked to a Russian oligarch targeted by US sanctions deposited around $500,000 into an account controlled by Essential Consultants, the shell company Cohen used to pay hush money to Daniels before the 2016 election. Michael Avenatti alleges that funds from oligarch Viktor Vekselberg may have "replenished the account" in a series of payments in 2017 after the Daniels settlement, though Columbus Nova, a US affiliate of a Vekselberg company, denies that he was involved in its payments to Trump's personal lawyer, the Washington Post reports. The purpose of the company's payments is unclear. Sources tell CNN that Robert Mueller's investigators have already quizzed Vekselberg about the payments to Cohen's company. Records reviewed by the Times show that around $4.4 million flowed through the Essential Consultants account between its creation weeks before the 2016 election and January this year, including hundreds of thousands of dollars from pharmaceutical firm Novartis, AT&T, and Korea Aerospace. AT&T confirmed the payments late Tuesday, saying Cohen's firm was among those it "engaged in early 2017 to provide insights into understanding the new administration," the AP reports. Cohen isn't a registered lobbyist, and while the unusual payments may not have broken any laws, Trump and his attorney "have a lot of explaining to do," Avenatti said in a tweet Tuesday.