After Stormy Daniels attorney Michael Avenatti revealed that several companies paid President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen millions of dollars for access, several have declared the decisions a “big mistake.”
Among them, AT&T, who has just forced out their top DC exec responsible for authorizing $600,000 in payments to Cohen.
The NY Post says AT&T “told employees in a memo that Bob Quinn was retiring — but an insider said Quinn was booted after the embarrassing revelation about the payment,” according to a Wall Street Journal report.
”There is no other way to say it — AT&T hiring Michael Cohen as a political consultant was a big mistake,” company CEO Randall Stephenson told employees in a company-wide email.
AT&T’s general counsel, David McAtee will take over for Quinn.
“David’s number one priority is to ensure every one of the individuals and firms we use in the political arena are people who share our high standards and who we would be proud to have associated with AT&T,“ Stephenson’s message says.
Much has been made of the payment to Cohen, which was arranged reportedly just three days after Trump was sworn in. AT&T is desperately working to get a merger with Time Warner approved. Trump on the campaign trail repeatedly said he would block it. The payment puts Cohen, AT&T, and the Trump administration in a bad light.