AT&T chief executive Randall Stephenson sent an email to all employees Friday morning, calling the decision to hire President Donald Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen "a big mistake" and saying AT&T's top lobbyist will leave the company.

"Our company has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons these last few days and our reputation has been damaged," he said. "There is no other way to say it — AT&T hiring Michael Cohen as a political consultant was a big mistake."

His remarks are the strongest that the Dallas-based telecom giant has made since reports Tuesday that it paid $600,000 to Essential Consultants to get advice about policy matters, including its merger with Time Warner. Cohen used the shell company to pay hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels after she alleged an affair with Trump. AT&T was one of at least four companies that made payments to Cohen, including Columbus Nova, a company with ties to a Russian oligarch; Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis; and South Korean defense company Korea Aerospace Industries.

In his email, Stephenson said AT&T did not break the law. However, he said, its association with Cohen "was a serious misjudgment."

"In this instance, our Washington D.C. team's vetting process clearly failed, and I take responsibility for that," he said.

He said Bob Quinn, who leads lobbying efforts in Washington, will retire. Going forward, he said, the external and legislative affairs group will report to AT&T's general counsel David McAtee.

Through a spokesman, Quinn declined to comment.

On Friday morning, AT&T also provided new details about its agreement with Cohen in a document attached to the employee email. AT&T said Cohen approached the company's external affairs team during the post-election transition period and said he was leaving the Trump team to be a consultant. The company said it signed a one-year contract at $50,000 per month, from January through December 2017.

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson (left) went to Trump Tower in New York for a meeting with the president on Jan. 12, 2017. He was accompanied by Bob Quinn (right), who will retire after the revelation that the Dallas-based telecom paid Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen. (Kevin Hagen/The New York Times) (KEVIN HAGEN / NYT)

Quinn, 57, was the face of AT&T's lobbying team in Washington. He reported directly to Stephenson and accompanied him to Trump Tower when the CEO met with Trump in January 2017.

AT&T has long retained serious muscle in Washington. The telecom giant employs scores of lobbyists, both in-house and through outside firms. The company's federal political action committee also sends millions of dollars each year to lawmakers in the form of political contributions.

It spent nearly $17 million last year on lobbying, ranking AT&T ninth among all groups in the U.S., according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

"They have the biggest, best-resourced, most experienced policy shop in the tech and telecom world," said Berin Szoka, president of TechFreedom, a nonprofit think tank.

How it began

AT&T was thrust into the spotlight Tuesday after Michael Avenatti, the lawyer for Stephanie Clifford, the adult-film star known as Stormy Daniels, posted documents about AT&T and other companies making payments to Cohen's company.

AT&T admitted it made payments to Cohen for consulting in a statement Tuesday, but said Cohen did not do lobbying or legal work. The company sent an email to employees Wednesday, saying Cohen was one of several consultants the company hired to better understand the Trump administration. It said it didn't know of "the current controversy surrounding Cohen" until media reports in 2018.

But later on Wednesday, it released another statement, saying it had been contacted in November and December 2017 by the office of special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. AT&T said it "cooperated fully" and considered the matter closed.

AT&T signed the contract with Cohen at a time when it had several crucial matters pending in Washington. The company struck an agreement in October 2016 to acquire media and entertainment company Time Warner. Time Warner owns TV networks and movie studios, including CNN, HBO and Warner Bros. The deal is valued at nearly $109 billion, including debt, and needs the approval of federal regulators.

When AT&T hired Cohen in January 2017, Trump had already expressed opposition to the AT&T-Time Warner deal. At a campaign rally in late October, he called the merger "an example of the power structure I'm fighting" and vowed to stop it. He has frequently criticized Time Warner-owned CNN, saying its coverage of his administration is unfair.

The company was also pushing for a tax reform bill that would slash corporate taxes and wanted the Trump-appointed leadership of the Federal Communications Commission to roll back Obama-era net neutrality rules.

AT&T has scored victories on tax reform and net neutrality. It is still waiting on the merger. The Justice Department sued to block the deal in November 2017. The antitrust trial ended last month and a judge's ruling is expected by June 12.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked Friday about the payments Cohen received from AT&T and other companies. She said that the payments had no effect on any administration decisions.

"This further proves that the president is not going to be influenced by special interests," she said. "This is actually the definition of draining the swamp, something that the president has talked about repeatedly. ...It's pretty clear that the Department of Justice opposed the merger, and so certainly the president has not been influenced by any — or his administration influenced by any outside special interests."

Ousted top lobbyist

Quinn, AT&T's ousted top lobbyist, stepped into the role in October 2016 after longtime AT&T lobbyist Jim Cicconi retired. Cicconi, before he departed, made news by publicly supporting Democrat Hillary Clinton in her 2016 presidential campaign, despite his strong GOP ties. Cicconi also donated $5,000 to the Hillary Victory Fund in September 2016.

AT&T has always maintained an aggressive posture in Washington, but Quinn brought a different style, experts said.

"Quinn is a street fighter, while Cicconi was more of a statesman," said Gigi Sohn, a former Federal Communications Commission official who is now a fellow at the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law & Policy. "Each were effective in their own way."

Sohn often clashed with AT&T — and Quinn — over the years. But she said she respected Quinn, whom she described as someone who "bled blue and white," referring to the colors of AT&T's iconic logo.

"He was a 100 percent, full-fledged, balls-to-the-wall advocate for what he believed was right for AT&T," she said. "While we obviously butted heads plenty of times, I actually admired that."

Ed Merlis, a retired lobbyist for telecom trade group USTelecom, said he was stunned when he heard AT&T had hired Cohen as a consultant. He said it was "totally out of character" with the lobbying team he knew.

“When I heard that, I thought ‘Oh God, no,’” he recounted. “Trouble’s a-brewin'.’”

As a top lobbyist for the telecom trade group from 2003-2007, Merlis routinely met with Cicconi and his team. He said AT&T had a “methodical approach” to advocating for itself and “had lots of very well-regarded, connected lobbyists who were both on staff and on retainer.”

“If Jim Cicconi was still running AT&T’s Washington office, I doubt that Michael Cohen would have been hired,” he said.

Quinn has deep AT&T experience. He worked as an operator for Illinois Bell starting in 1980, according to his company bio. He then worked as a trial attorney for Mayer Brown & Platt before returning to AT&T in 1993 as a regional attorney in Chicago, where he represented the company before state public utility commissions, the company bio says.

He eventually moved to AT&T's policy shop in Washington, where he has been for more than a decade.

Quinn donated thousands of dollars over the years to political candidates of both parties, according to campaign finance records. He contributed to President Barack Obama's campaigns in 2008 and 2012, but did not contribute to any contender in the 2016 race.

Staff writer Tom Benning contributed to this report from Washington.

Read the email:

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