New York, May 10 (RHC)-- The New York Times is reporting that U.S. President Donald Trump’s longtime personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen paid adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 in hush money using a shell company that was funded, in part, by a billionaire Russian oligarch.  The hush money, paid days before the 2016 election, was intended to keep Stormy Daniels, also known as Stephanie Clifford, from speaking out about her alleged affair with Donald Trump back in 2006. 

Newly-reviewed financial documents show Cohen paid Daniels through a shell company named Essential Consultants LLC.  This shell company later received half a million dollars from a New York investment firm named Columbus Nova, whose biggest client is a company controlled by Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, who was stopped and questioned at an airport earlier this year by investigators for special counsel Robert Mueller.  

Federal prosecutors are investigating Cohen for possible election law violations and bank fraud.  Trump has admitted he reimbursed Cohen for the $130,000 hush money payment to Daniels.  The New York Times also reports Cohen used the shell company, Essential Consultants, to collect a quarter of a million dollars after Cohen brokered a separate hush money payment for major Republican donor Elliott Broidy, who paid off a former Playboy model to keep quiet about their affair, which resulted in her having an abortion. 

Other companies that contributed to Essential Consultants are Korea Aerospace Industries, which is competing for a multi-billion-dollar contract to provide trainer jets for the U.S. Air Force, and AT&T, whose proposed merger with Time Warner is currently pending before the Justice Department.  The drugmaker Novartis also paid into the shell company.