AT&T Met With Ajit Pai in Barcelona Shortly After Cohen Payment

AT&T Met With Ajit Pai in Barcelona Shortly After Cohen Payment

Last week, AT&T apologized for for its "serious misjudgment" in hiring US President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen to provide “insights” into how the new administration would handle issues like net neutrality and AT&T’s proposed merger with Time Warner Cable. Ultimately, the $600,000 AT&T paid Cohen for said insights became such a scandal, the company was forced to fire its top policy and lobbying man Bob Quinn, despite the fact that such behavior is arguably routine at the Dallas-based telecom giant.

While AT&T would obviously like to move on from the scandal, watchdogs and several lawmakers would like to see the issue explored in more detail.

New scheduling documents obtained through FOIA by corruption watchdog American Oversight show the Chairman met with with top AT&T executives at a private dinner in Barcelona a month after the company began paying Cohen.

One of the AT&T executives at that meeting was top AT&T policy and lobbying exec Bob Quinn, who orchestrated the payments to Cohen and was fired by AT&T for what the company now acknowledges was "a mistake."

“A private dinner between Chairman Pai and an AT&T executive who hired Michael Cohen to influence the president doesn’t reflect well on the impartiality of the FCC," said American Oversight Director Austin Evers in a statement. "Pai should disclose exactly what was discussed at the dinner and who organized the meeting. Did Michael Cohen set up a dinner where AT&T executives tried to sway a member of the president’s administration on policy that affects the company?"

"We can’t know for sure until Pai tells the whole story," the group proclaimed. "The FCC has some serious explaining to do."

Given that Pai is arguably ultra-cozy with the industry he's supposed to be holding accountable, it's entirely possible that meeting would have happened anyway. But the group still believes that the company and Ajit Pai should be more transparent about the meeting, especially given the laundry list of favors (from gutting net neutrality to killing consumer privacy protections) that have rained down upon AT&T since Trump picked Pai to head the agency.

Meanwhile, the scuttlebutt I'm hearing in telecom circles is that AT&T's donations came as AT&T was trying to secure the nomination of Pai's fellow FCC commissioner Brendan Carr, given the telco was eager to ensure the appointment of a Commissioner that would consistently vote in line with Pai's agenda. That agenda not only has included the assault on net neutrality, but protection of AT&T's business data services monopoly and the elimination of smaller competitors