T AT&T Inc

By Drew FitzGerald 

AT&T Inc.'s top Washington executive and policy chief is being forced out of the company after his office paid $600,000 to Trump attorney Michael Cohen last year.

The company told employees in an internal memo Friday that Bob Quinn was retiring, but a person familiar with the matter said Mr. Quinn was being forced to leave.

"There is no other way to say it -- AT&T hiring Michael Cohen as a political consultant was a big mistake," the company's chief executive, Randall Stephenson, said in the message to employees.

Mr. Quinn didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Stephenson said in his memo that the company's general counsel, David McAtee, would take over the company's D.C. operations.

"David's number one priority is to ensure every one of the individuals and firms we use in the political arena are people who share our high standards and who we would be proud to have associated with AT&T, " Mr. Stephenson wrote.

AT&T said earlier this week that it hired a company created by Mr. Cohen for insights into the Trump administration shortly after Donald Trump's inauguration, at a time when it needed government approval for an $85 billion takeover of Time Warner Inc.

AT&T also said it had been contacted in late 2017 by special counsel Robert Mueller's office and cooperated with the probe.

The company paid Mr. Cohen through the same vehicle, Essential Consultants, he used in October 2016 to direct $130,000 to the adult-film actress known professionally as Stormy Daniels to stay silent about an alleged sexual encounter with Mr. Trump in 2006. Messrs. Trump and Cohen deny the encounter.

On Wednesday, AT&T told employees that Mr. Cohen didn't perform legal or lobbying work for the company, adding, "It was not until the following month in January 2018 that the media first reported, and AT&T first became aware of, the current controversy surrounding Cohen."

The Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit in November 2017 to block AT&T's proposed merger with Time Warner. The two sides have spent the past two months battling in federal court. The deal's outcome is now in the hands of a federal judge, who is expected to rule on June 12.

Write to Drew FitzGerald at andrew.fitzgerald@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 11, 2018 10:26 ET (14:26 GMT)

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