TechDirt reports that corporations don't usually like to be involved in proceedings that end up in court. Like, say, the investigation into whether the campaign of Donald Trump worked with the Russians to spread hacked emails, or the investigations into payoffs from a presidential candidate to a porn star. AT&T got in the midst of both stories and investigations this week, with the revelation they paid the LLC company run by the president's lawyer Michael Cohen. "Essential Consulting was one of several firms we engaged in early 2017 to provide insights into understanding the new administration. They did no legal or lobbying work for us, and the contract ended in December 2017," a statement from AT&T said, trying to explain why it sent four $50,000 payments to the same company Cohen used to pay off the porn star Stormy Daniels on behalf of the president, who was at the time of the payment, a candidate. And AT&T had several important matters before various federal agencies around the time of the payoffs to Cohen. For instance, AT&T was trying to convince the administration to sign off on its $86 billion acquisition of Time Warner, but the Trump Department of Justice blocked that deal for anti-competitive reasons. AT&T also was against net neutrality, and the FCC repealed those regulations in December.