Article snippet: Stormy Daniels’s attorney Michael Avenatti said Tuesday that MORE’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen received $500,000 in the months after the 2016 election from a company run by a Russian oligarch with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Avenatti said the funding may have been used to reimburse the $130,000 payment Cohen made to Daniels to stay quiet about her alleged affair with Trump. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani revealed last week that Trump had reimbursed Cohen $130,000, which was given to Daniels just days before the 2016 election. Cohen had earlier claimed that the nondisclosure payment came from his own funds, and Trump had told reporters he was unaware it had been been made. Giuliani, who recently joined Trump’s personal legal team, has said that Trump only recently learned of the payment to Daniels, and he has not ruled out the possibility that Cohen made payments to other women on Trump's behalf. Avenatti released a report with preliminary findings about the bank account he says Cohen used to make the payment to Daniels. That account was made in the name of the company Cohen created to transfer the money to Daniels, Essential Consultants LLC. “Mr. Cohen inexplicably accepted these payments while he was the personal attorney to the President and holding himself out at times as employed by the Trump Organization (with few other clients),” the report reads. “This was occurring at the same time significant questions were being raised relating t... Link to the full article to read more