 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.  (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. 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 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 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. 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. 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. 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. Giuliani has said Trump’s money served as a reimbursement for the funds Cohen provided to Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford. Korea Aerospace, which is alleged to have paid Cohen $150,000 in November 2017, did not immediately 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. 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. 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. 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 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. 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.
– 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.