Michael Cohen, the personal attorney for Donald Trump, is again denying allegations that he visited Prague in summer 2016, as the infamous Steele dossier alleges.
“Bad reporting, bad information and bad story by same reporter Peter Stone,” Cohen wrote on Twitter on Saturday.
The story in question is from McClatchy. Citing “two sources familiar with the matter,” the news agency reported that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has obtained evidence of a Cohen visit to Prague.
If true, the evidence would pose a significant problem for Cohen. He has vehemently denied ever visiting Prague or the Czech Republic and says that all of the allegations about him in the dossier are false. Cohen has said that he was in Los Angeles visiting universities with his son when the dossier claims he was overseas.
The dossier, which was written by former British spy Christopher Steele, alleges that Cohen secretly visited Prague in August or September 2016 in order to meet with Russian government officials to discuss a conspiracy to hack Democrats’ email systems.
Cohen is suing BuzzFeed News, which published the 35-page report on Jan. 10, 2017. BuzzFeed did not verify the allegations against Cohen, and no news outlets have reported that there is any evidence that Cohen visited Prague.
CNN’s Jake Tapper reported on the day that the dossier was published that a government source told him that a different Michael Cohen was who visited Prague.
Cohen has provided photos of the inside of his passport to BuzzFeed in an effort to prove that he did not visit the Czech Republic.
But McClatchy’s sources said that investigators have evidence that Cohen entered the Czech Republic through Germany. The news service reports:
He wouldn’t have needed a passport for such a trip, because both countries are in the so-called Schengen Area in which 26 nations operate with open borders. The disclosure still left a puzzle: The sources did not say whether Cohen took a commercial flight or private jet to Europe, and gave no explanation as to why no record of such a trip has surfaced.
The story did not elaborate on how Mueller’s team allegedly obtained the evidence on Cohen.
The McClatchy story hit just days after Cohen had his office, home and hotel room raided by FBI agents. It was revealed this week that Cohen is under investigation for bank fraud, wire fraud and campaign finance violations. (RELATED: FBI Raids Michael Cohen’s Office)
It is unclear whether the FBI raid connects directly to Mueller’s Russia investigation. Mueller’s office referred information to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan, which signed off on the Cohen search warrant.
Cohen’s lawyer, Stephen Ryan, did not respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment. In February, he told TheDCNF that “the bottom line is no allegation about Mr. Cohen in the dossier is correct or fact based.”
The special counsel’s office also did not respond to a request for comment.
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