Trump lawyer Michael Cohen denies traveling to Prague
Special counsel Robert Mueller has evidence showing that President Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, visited Prague during August or September of 2016, McClatchy reported Friday. If this is true, it could heighten the credibility of the so-called Steele dossier, an unverified set of memos that contain allegations that members of the Trump campaign colluded and conspired with Russia during the presidential campaign.
But Cohen has persistently denied not only the broader allegations, but also that he ever took this trip to Prague -- or any trip to Prague, for that matter. He did so again Saturday, tweeting, "Bad reporting, bad information and bad story by same reporter Peter Stone @McClatchyDC. No matter how many times or ways they write it, I have never been to Prague. I was in LA with my son. Proven!"
He did not say what proof exists to support his claim.
The Steele dossier claims that Cohen travelled to Prague and met with Russian operatives in August or September. The agenda, says the dossier, covered questions on covering up payments to Europe-based hackers targeting Hillary Clinton's campaign and "Moscow's secret liaison with the TRUMP team more generally."
In the scenario reported by McClatchy, investigators have found evidence Cohen entered the Czech Republic through Germany in the Schengen Area, where the borders are open. If this is the case, he would not have needed a passport for the trip.
By his own admission, Cohen traveled to Europe three times in 2016 -- to London and to Italy -- but he says in August, he only traveled to Los Angeles, traveling with his son to the University of Southern California.
Federal investigators are interested in Cohen. Investigators conducted a raid on his office, home and hotel room on Monday, a situation Mr. Trump called a "disgrace."
Federal prosecutors said in a court filing Friday that the criminal probe that led them to raid Cohen's spaces is focused on the attorney's "personal business dealings" and has been going on for months. In the filing with a court in New York, prosecutors blacked out a section describing what laws they believe Cohen has broken, but they said the "crimes being investigated involve acts of concealment" and suspected fraud.
They also made clear that investigators have been gathering extensive evidence for some time as part of an ongoing grand jury investigation. Agents, they wrote, had already searched multiple email accounts maintained by Cohen after securing an earlier search warrant.
