WILLIAM BRANGHAM: There are new
questions being raised about
payments to President Trump's

personal attorney,
Michael Cohen.

The money went to a shell
company set up by Cohen.

It totaled more than $4 million,
including about $500,000
from a U.S. company with ties

to a Russian oligarch who
is close to Vladimir Putin.

John Yang breaks
down what we know.

JOHN YANG: William, the payments
went to the company that Cohen
says he set up to pay the

$130,000 hush money to adult
film actress Stephanie Clifford.

Her attorney, Michael Avenatti,
revealed the payments in a
document he posted online.

To help us unpack all of this,
here's Rosalind Helderman.

She's the Washington
Post political
investigations reporter.

Rosalind, thanks so
much for joining us.

Of the payments that you have
been able to confirm, who did
they come from, and how much

money are we talking about?

ROSALIND HELDERMAN, The
Washington Post: We're
talking about, I think
it's about $2.5 million

that seems to be
confirmed at this point.

And they come from some major
U.S. and foreign companies.

They include AT&T, Novartis,
a pharmaceutical company.

They include this company
Columbus Nova, which is
a U.S.-based affiliate
of a company that

is owned and founded by
a Russian businessman.

One thing that ties a number of
these companies together is that
they had major issues pending

before the U.S. government.

But each of them, in turn, has
essentially said that that's
not why they hired Mr. Cohen,

that they hired him for various
reasons, to provide real estate
advice, to provide accounting

advice, for his general
legal knowledge.

JOHN YANG: And, Rosalind,
what -- I know there
was a filing late today,
Michael Cohen challenging

some of this information that
Michael Avenatti put out.

What can you tell us about that?

ROSALIND HELDERMAN:
Yes, that's right.

That just came in,
I think, within the
last 10 minutes or so.

This is lawyers for Michael
Cohen saying basically
two things in court about
the Avenatti information.

On the one hand, they seem
to be conceding that some of
it is accurate, because they

say it's a sign that Avenatti
improperly has access to
Michael Cohen's bank records.

And they're trying to
get the court to force
Avenatti to say where he's
getting this information,

so they can assess whether
he properly should have
access to that information.

At the same time, they
cited some of the details
that have not been covered
in the media, because

I think the media has not been
able to confirm them, a few
additional details that are sort

of on the last page of
what Avenatti put out.

And they're suggesting
that that information
might actually be false.

JOHN YANG: And, in addition,
the Treasury Department
inspector general has begun an

investigation about whether any
confidential banking records
have been tampered with.

Why is Avenatti so
interested in this?

Why is he putting this out?

ROSALIND HELDERMAN: I think that
he -- what he has said is that
it gives you more information

about the -- the sort of
process by which his client,
Ms. Clifford, was paid, because

Michael Cohen seems to have
used this same bank account that
he used to pay Stormy Daniels,

as she is better known,
as he did for all these
other transactions.

He says that his
strategy is working.

He's on TV a great deal, as
your viewers probably know.

And, as a result, people are
just sending him information
that is relevant and helps

inform the American public
about the activities of Mr.
Cohen and President Trump.

And he's trying
to publicize that.

JOHN YANG: What else is sort
of intriguing about these --
where -- the source of these

payments?

ROSALIND HELDERMAN: Yes.

I mean, I think one thing that's
very interesting is the sort of
-- the picture you get of the

swamp as it exists
under Donald Trump.

Of course, President Trump
ran against the D.C. swamp.

And one thing that's been very
clear is that people associated
with President Trump, with

his campaign, with his business,
who can argue to major companies
that they know this very

hard-to-understand world of
Trump's Washington suddenly
have found themselves
with very marketable

skills.

I spoke to several people
like that just today
who said essentially
that their phones were

ringing off the hook starting in
January of 2017 from companies
who wanted to, you know,

essentially throw money at them
to understand Donald Trump.

JOHN YANG: And not only
understand Donald Trump.

You said that some of these
companies had business before
the government in the past

couple of years.

ROSALIND HELDERMAN:
Yes, that's right.

AT&T was -- is going through
a merger which requires
Department of Justice approval.

That's an important
thing for that company.

They say it's unrelated
to these payments.

Novartis, their CEO had a
meeting with Donald Trump
not long after this payment.

They, too, say that
that was unrelated.

But these are companies that
have -- another one of them,
Korean Aerospace, makes aircraft

and is competing for a
very, very large contract
with the U.S. Air Force.

They, too, say that's
unrelated to these payments.

But these are companies that
had things they were trying to
get out of the U.S. government.

JOHN YANG: And, Rosalind,
we should note that
another of President
Trump's personal attorneys,

Rudolph Giuliani, is saying this
evening that the president had
no knowledge of these payments

to Cohen.

But this story will go on.

Rosalind Helderman of The
Washington Post, thank you
so much for joining us.

ROSALIND HELDERMAN:
Thank you for having me.