Yesterday, in an interview with Bloomberg, Michael Cohen’s attorney Lanny Davis asserted that his client “has never been to Prague in his life,” adding that the thirteen references in the Steele dossier to a Prague connection involving Cohen are false.
If this was intended as a bombshell revelation, it fell pretty short of expectations. The whole issue of Cohen’s alleged secret trip to Prague was debunked and redebunked back in April when Cohen was still in the president’s camp.
As I wrote at the time, McClatchy ran story claiming that Robert Mueller had evidence that “Cohen secretly made a late-summer trip to Prague during the 2016 presidential campaign.” Cohen responded to the allegations personally in a tweet:
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
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! https://t.co/ra7nwjUA0X
— Michael Cohen (@MichaelCohen212) April 14, 2018
Cohen’s “proof “— photos of his passport showing that he never visited the Czech Republic — were not unimpeachable. According to the McClatchy piece, Mueller’s investigators claimed to have evidence that Cohen entered the Czech Republic through Germany, which requires no passport. But as I wrote:
There are still unanswered questions. Chief among these is why there are no records of Cohen taking a commercial or private jet flight to and from Europe. In addition there is Cohen’s claim in his tweet that he was in California. Presumably evidence, such as hotel records and travel information, should be available to support that contention.
On top of all that was the claim made on CNN by a government source who confirmed it had been a different Michael Cohen who visited Prague:
Government source confirms different Michael Cohen was in Prague https://t.co/B4cwmL1Ek3
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) January 11, 2017
