Essential Consultants

Essential Consultants LLC was a Delaware-based shell company established in 2016 by Michael Cohen, the former personal attorney to Donald Trump. The firm gained significant notoriety in the pharmaceutical and healthcare sectors after it was revealed that Novartis, a global pharmaceutical leader, paid the company $1.2 million for "healthcare policy" consulting services following the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Investigations later determined that the firm provided no substantive services to Novartis, and the payments were widely characterized as an attempt to gain access to the incoming administration. The company was also famously used to facilitate hush-money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, leading to its central role in federal investigations and Cohen's subsequent legal conviction.