Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen has denied a Thursday report that he was in Prague in the summer of 2016 to meet with Russian officials.
If true, the claim which would support the infamous “Steele Dossier” – a collection of opposition research on the Trump Campaign during the 2016 US election. The dossier was funded in part by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and used by the FBI to justify spying on the Trump campaign.
McClatchy reported on Thursday that a phone traced to Cohen “briefly sent signals ricocheting off cell towers in the Prague area in late summer 2016,” a report which echoed their April claim that special counsel Robert Mueller had evidence of Cohen’s trip – which FBI and CIA sources told a Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter that they didn’t believe Cohen took.
On Thursday afternoon Cohen tweeted: “I hear #Prague #CzechRepublic is beautiful in the summertime. I wouldn’t know as I have never been. #Mueller knows everything!”
I hear #Prague #CzechRepublic is beautiful in the summertime. I wouldn’t know as I have never been. #Mueller knows everything!
— Michael Cohen (@MichaelCohen212) December 27, 2018
Cohen became ensnared in the Russia investigation earlier this year, after the FBI raided his Manhattan office and hotel room on a referral from Mueller. Cohen pleaded guilty to a slew of unrelated federal charges in August and later admitted to lying to Congress about plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, striking a plea deal with the special counsel to cooperate in the probe.
Mueller is investigating whether members of the Trump campaign coordinated with Moscow to interfere in the election and has said that Cohen provided valuable information and went to significant lengths to assist the investigation. Cohen has since been sentenced to three years in prison for his crimes. –The Hill
Earlier this month we reported that FBI email exchanges – kept from Congressional investigators for over two years, revealed that the agency was aware that the US intelligence community doubted the reliability of Steele Dossier.
The email exchanges show the FBI was aware — before it secured the now-infamous warrant — that there were intelligence community concerns about the reliability of the main evidence used to support it: the Christopher Steele dossier.
The exchanges also indicate FBI officials were aware that Steele, the former MI6 British intelligence operative then working as a confidential human source for the bureau, had contacts with news media reporters before the FISA warrant was secured. –The Hill
On August 21 Cohen pleaded guilty in New York to tax evasion, bank fraud and making an illegal campaign contribution to porn star Stormy Daniels, for which he was sentenced to three years in federal prison on December 12.
via RSS http://bit.ly/2Q7RyNk Tyler Durden