AT&T Insiders Amusingly Attempt To Explain Cohen Payments

[jberryhill]

Oh boy....

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/cohens-600000-deal-with-atandt-specified-he-would-advise-on-time-warner-merger-internal-company-records-show/2018/05/10/cd541ae0-5468-11e8-a551-5b648abe29ef_story.html?utm_term=.327d5ba8e27c


The documents detail the full scope of Cohen’s $600,000 deal with AT&T and how his contract specified that he would provide advice on the $85 billion merger, which required the approval of federal antitrust regulators.

...

The $600,000 that flowed to Cohen from AT&T was about 3.5 percent of the $16.8 million the company spent on lobbying in 2017, according to disclosure forms.

...

The internal AT&T documents show that Cohen was supposed to spend half his time on “legislative policy development” and the other half on “regulatory policy development.” Payments to Cohen were approved by two executives in AT&T’s public affairs office in Washington.

Because, hell yeah, when I need advice on telecom legislative and regulatory policy development, I'm going to call a guy who launders money through real estate and the taxi medallion racket.

[Takket]

1. is the swamp drained yet?

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. A bunch of overpaid Bobos in suits trying to justify/minimize

A bribe. The lousy bastards got conned by a lousy bastard.

[rzemanfl]

3. K&R n/t.

[C_U_L8R]

4. AT&T knew exactly what they were getting into

Whatever they try to call it, it's bribery.

[safeinOhio]

6. Nothing to see here.

Now pay a small fine and move along.

[sarcasmo]

5. #Insights