Senators Question Russian-Oligarch-Linked Firm That Hired Michael Cohen

Democrats want to know why Columbus Nova hired Donald Trump’s longtime fixer.

Michael Cohen leaves court in Manhattan on April 16, 2018.Go Nakamura/ZUMA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Four Democratic senators want a New York financial firm linked to Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg to explain its hiring last year of Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s longtime personal attorney and emerging legal adversary.

Cohen has publicly advertised his willingness to cooperate with federal prosecutors investigating him for possible campaign finance violations and financial crimes. On Thursday, CNN reported that Cohen is prepared to tell special counsel Robert Mueller that Trump knew in advance about the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower at which Trump campaign officials expected to receive damaging information about Hillary Clinton from a Russian emissary. That’s one of several areas in which Cohen’s claims could show that Trump lied in public statements, a fact that might spell legal trouble for the president.

A letter sent Thursday by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) shows that Cohen’s legal plight is also drawing continued scrutiny of the companies that hired him hoping to capitalize on his access to Trump. The firms paid Cohen through a limited liability company he set up in Delaware. Cohen used the same LLC to pay hush money to women including Stormy Daniels, a pornographic actress who claims she had sex with Trump in 2006, the year after he married First Lady Melania Trump.

The lawmakers sent 29 questions to Andrew Intrater, the CEO of Columbus Nova, a New York-based investment firm. Intrater is Vekselberg’s distant cousin. Vekselberg’s conglomerate, the Renova Group, has also been Columbus Nova’s primary client. The Treasury Department sanctioned Vekselberg and Renova in April, barring them from financial transactions in the United States. Intrater, who had little prior history of political contributions, donated $250,000 to Trump’s inaugural committee and $35,000 to a Trump reelection fund in 2017. Vekselberg attended Trump’s inauguration with Intrater and discussed US-Russia relations during a meeting with Cohen in Trump Tower. Both Vekselberg and Intrater have reportedly been questioned by Mueller’s office.

Columbus Nova last year paid Cohen $500,000. Two people people speaking for the firm told Mother Jones in May that Intrater hired Cohen in the hope that he could connect the the firm with wealthy investors. In their letter, the senators alleged that Cohen tried—unsuccessfully—to convince another client, the drug company Novartis, to invest in a pharmaceutical firm tied to Columbus Nova.

The senators want to know whether the payments Columbus Nova made to Cohen were connected to Vekselberg and Russian-influence efforts. Their letter notes that “Columbus Nova began paying Mr. Cohen in January 2017 and that shortly thereafter, he worked with Ukrainian politician Andrii Artemenko to hand deliver a proposal ‘outlining a way for President Trump to lift sanctions against Russia’ to the office of then-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.” The senators cite reporting that indicates Vekselberg hoped to fund Artemenko’s plan through Columbus Nova. They ask Intrater to explain “what relationship, if any,” he or Columbus Nova has with Artemenko.

A spokesman for Columbus Nova said Friday that Intrater and Columbus Nova had no ties to Artemenko. He said the firm is reviewing the letter.

Read the Democrats’ letter here:

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate