WASHINGTON, Dec 28, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former
attorney, denied Thursday that he had ever visited Prague, shooting down a
report that he had a meeting with Russian officials there during the 2016
presidential election campaign.
“I hear #Prague #CzechRepublic is beautiful in the summertime,” Cohen
tweeted. “I wouldn’t know as I have never been.
“#Mueller knows everything!” he added in a reference to Special Counsel
Robert Mueller, the former FBI director who is investigating whether Trump’s
campaign colluded with Russia to get him elected to the White House
Cohen’s tweet came several hours after the McClatchy news service reported
that cell phone records showed that Cohen was near Prague in the summer of
2016, supporting claims that he met there with Russian officials.
Cohen, who was sentenced to three years in prison this month after pleading
guilty to tax evasion and other crimes, had denied previously ever visiting
Prague.
Cohen has been cooperating for the past several months with the Special
Counsel’s office but details of his cooperation with the Mueller probe have
not been publicly revealed.
Trump vehemently denies any collusion with Russia and has denounced the
Mueller investigation as a “political witch hunt.”
The purported meeting between Cohen and Russian government officials in
Prague was first reported in a document with compromising material on Trump
compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele.
According to what has become known as the “Steele dossier,” Cohen had a
clandestine meeting with Kremlin officials in Prague in August 2016 to
discuss hiding links between members of the Trump campaign and Russia.
McClatchy, publisher of the Miami Herald and other newspapers, said a
mobile phone traced to Cohen had briefly sent signals off cell towers in the
Prague area in late summer 2016.
“The brief activation from Cohen’s phone near Prague sent beacons that left
a traceable electronic signature,” it said.
Citing “four people with knowledge of the matter,” McClatchy said that the
electronic record supports “claims that Cohen met secretly there with Russian
officials.”
“During the same period of late August or early September (2016),
electronic eavesdropping by an Eastern European intelligence agency picked up
a conversation among Russians, one of whom remarked that Cohen was in
Prague,” McClatchy cited “two people familiar with the incident” as saying.
“The new information regarding the recovery of Cohen’s cell phone location
doesn’t explain why he was apparently there or who he was meeting with, if
anyone,” McClatchy said.
“But it adds to evidence that Cohen was in or near Prague around the time
of the supposed meeting,” it said.
McClatchy said the intelligence pointing to the presence of Cohen near
Prague had been shared with the Special Counsel’s office.
Among the crimes Cohen pleaded guilty to was lying to Congress about the
status of a Trump real estate project in Moscow.
Cohen acknowledged that the talks to build a Trump Tower in Moscow
continued until at least June 2016 — six months longer than he had told
Congress.