Was Cohen Trump's Bag Man For A Pay-To-Play Scheme ?

(Photo of Michael Cohen from The Daily Beast is by Brendan McDermid/Gatty Images.)

It looks like the Stormy Daniels affair is morphing into an expose of corruption. Daniel's attorney has exposed financial transactions that certainly look suspicious.

It seems that Cohen created a shell company called Essential Consultants. That company had no employees and no actual physical location. It was nothing more than a name to be used to funnel money through.

We now know that at least four entities paid $4.5 million into that shell company. They were a Russian oligarch, a Korean aerospace company, a drug company called Novartis, and AT&T. Why would these entities pay $4.5 million to Cohen through this shell company?

Cohen is just a shady lawyer. He is not registered as a lobbyist, and has no skills that he could offer these entities. His only value is that he has one very important client -- Donald Trump. And all of those entities wanted something Trump could help them with.

* The Russians wanted sanctions lifted.

* The Korean aerospace company is up for a defense contract, and a word from Trump could make them millions.

* Novartis knew that the Republicans were going to try to repeal Obamacare and replace it with something, and they wanted to make sure their drug profits weren't affected by that.

* AT&T has a huge merger pending which must have government approval.

We know that out of that $4.5 million given to Essential Consultants, Stormy Daniels was paid $130,000. Michael Cohen also paid himself $1 million. That leaves more than $3 million. Where did that money go? Did it go to Trump, or to one of his businesses? Did that money pay for access to the president?

There's no proof yet that the money went to Trump -- but where else could it have gone? What else did Cohen have to offer other than access to the president?

This whole affair stinks of old-fashioned corruption. And it wasn't even hidden very well.