[droithomme]

OK so that Novartis thing. Trump gets elected. According to the second article there Novartis tracks down Trump's lawyer and signs a contract for him to "advise" them on US health care policy matters.

Then after they sign the contract they meet with him and determine that he "would be unable to provide the services that Novartis had anticipated". Without details but it sounds like they said, "OK we gave you all this money, we don't really want legal advice, we want you to influence the President or tell us privileged information" and Cohen said "No way that is unethical." They then had to pay the rest of the contract since it could only be terminated for cause and "lawyer refuses to commit crimes" isn't valid cause.

So yeah, Novartis is one of many companies that makes generic HCQ and sells it at near cost. It's not a money maker for them at all. It definitely sounds like they were trying to do something unethical and illegal here, but how is the fact their lawyer refused to go along with it evidence of something wrong with Cohen or any of his other clients?