One of the key elements of former British spy Christopher Steele’s 2016 report detailing collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians was an alleged trip Donald Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen, reportedly made to meet with the Russians in or around Prague in late August or early September 2016. Michael Cohen has always denied this allegation, including denials from his attorney, Lanny Davis, within the last month. The Trump camp has always denied it as well, painting it as “fake news.”
In April 2018, McClatchy reporter Peter Stone published a bombshell story saying Special Counsel Robert Mueller had obtained evidence that Michael Cohen had indeed been in Prague, something Cohen immediately took to Twitter to deny, claiming he had been with his son in Los Angeles during the time in question. Now, Peter Stone and his colleague Greg Gordon are back with a new bombshell: Michael Cohen’s cell phone briefly pinged off Prague cell towers in 2016. From McClatchy:
A mobile phone traced to President Donald Trump’s former lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen briefly sent signals ricocheting off cell towers in the Prague area in late summer 2016, at the height of the presidential campaign, leaving an electronic record to support claims that Cohen met secretly there with Russian officials, four people with knowledge of the matter say.
During the same period of late August or early September, electronic eavesdropping by an Eastern European intelligence agency picked up a conversation among Russians, one of whom remarked that Cohen was in Prague, two people familiar with the incident said.
If this report is accurate, this is a very, very big deal. Michael Cohen’s reported trip to meet with the Russians is a central part of the Steele dossier, one that Michael Cohen and Donald Trump have repeatedly and forcefully denied from the first moment the dossier was published by Buzzfeed. It’s the missing puzzle piece. Cohen reportedly traveled there for the purposes of meeting with Russian officials and paying off the Russian hackers who hacked into the DNC for the purposes of attacking the Hillary Clinton campaign. If Robert Mueller has evidence Cohen went to Prague to meet with the Russians, this is game over. There is no legitimate reason for Michael Cohen to secretly travel to Prague, meet with the Russians, and then vehemently deny it throughout two years of special counsel investigation unless the reason behind the trip was something so nefarious that it could end the Donald Trump presidency.
If confirmed, this is one more critical element of the dossier that is proven factual. Unfortunately, that means it is increasingly likely the most salacious part of the dossier could yet be proven true as well—that Vladimir Putin has video of Donald Trump with sex workers in a Moscow hotel room. That is the kind of blackmail that could be driving many of the most questionable decisions from the Trump administration. Either way, the truth is slowly trickling out, and this is not likely to end well for the Trump crime family.