Novartis payments to Michael Cohen were excessive by D.C. standards

STAT reports that there "weren’t any contracts under which an individual company paid a single lobbying firm [as much as] $1.2 million in 2017," the amount the Swiss drug maker paid Michael Cohen.

The big picture: Cohen was expected to help the company navigate through political challenges as a consultant but was paid more than any lobbyist in D.C.

"The record-setter was PricewaterhouseCoopers, which brought in $950,000 to represent the Alliance for Competitive Taxation in 2017, according to a Politico analysis of 2017 filings."