Former Donald Trump lawyer Michael Cohen's legal troubles may be deepening, following a report that a cell phone belonging to him was detected near Prague in the Czech Republic during the late summer of 2016.
McClatchy reported the development based on four separate sources with independent contacts in unnamed intelligence circles.
Intercepts from an Eastern European intelligence service have reportedly established that around the same time Cohen-linked phone signals were pinging among Czech cell phone towers, a group of Russians were intercepted in a conversation noting Cohen's presence in Prague.
McClatchy didn't explore in print the possibility that a Cohen adversary might have obtained the unique digital ID of his phone and put it on another, a simple task for the technically inclined.
Every phone carries an International Mobile Equipment Identity number, or IMEI, an electronic fingerprint that can be altered. Instructions for the hack are readily available online, covering both Apple and Android devices.
That raises the possibility that a foreign agent who obtained the ID number of Cohen's phone could have cloned it and switched it on somewhere in order to suggest he was present.
A new report based on four separate intelligence sources suggests that a phone traced back to former Donald Trump lawyer Michael Cohen was turned on near Prague, in the Czech Republic, in the fall of 2016 – despite his insistence that he's never been there
Cohen faces three years in prison for a range of crimes including tax and bank fraud, campaign finance law violations and lying to the FBI about a Trump Tower deal proposed for Moscow while Trump was running for president.
That sentence was the product of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office and the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
It's unknown whether he has told Mueller anything significant about a Prague meeting. But the infamous Steele dossier, a collection of unproven allegations about links between the Trump campaign and Russian agents, included a claim about Cohen meeting in Prague with a Kremlin agent to discuss Russia's plan for U.S. election-meddling.
The intelligence operation that produced the dossier, it was revealed last year, was funded by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's presidential capmaign.
McClatchy pointed in April to Konstantin Kosachev, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, as the likely Moscow agent Cohen allegedly met in Prague.
The Trump administration slapped Kosachev with stern sanctions this year for his role in Moscow's plan to destabilize Election Day in America.
Cohen denied ever being in Prague after an anti-Trump intelligence dossier described a secret meeting there between him and a Kremlin-connected agent during the 2016 campaign – a get-together that included discussion of how to pay hackers to interfere with the U.S. election
Cohen has gone after the McClatchy news service in the past, insisting that its reporting about a potential Prague tie was false
Kosachev and Cohen have flatly denied being in Prague during the relevant time period. Cohen has gone further, saying he has never been inside the Czech Republic.
Both men have denied having anything to do with a plot to monkey-wrench the 2016 U.S. elections.
The dossier alleged that Cohen and Kosachev, and other people they met with, talked about 'how deniable cash payments were to be made to hackers in Europe who had worked under Kremlin direction against the Clinton campaign.'
Cohen allowed a Buzzfeed reporter to photograph his passport in May. It showed no evidence that he entered that country. It also suggests that, at least since 2009, he has not been to Germany, something the Steele dossier included among its list of purported facts.
Christopher Steele, the former British spy who compiled the dossier, wrote that Cohen entered the Czech Republic from Germany.
Investigators working with Special Counsel Robert Mueller (center) reportedly have evidence that Cohen entered the Czech Republic through Germany in August or September of 2016; Cohen provided information to Mueller in advance of a plea deal for bank and tax fraud and campaign finance violations, cooperation that limited his prison sentence to three years
Cohen has repeated his never-in-Prague insistence a half-dozen times since early 2017 when Buzzfeed first published the dossier.
'I have never been to Prague. Get over it,' he tweeted at CNN anchor Chris Cuomo in January 2017.
This spring he lashed out at the McClatchy reporter who wrote the April article and the one published Thursday.
'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 wrote on Twitter.
Cohen spokesman Lanny Davis told McClatchy on Thursday that the disgraced former Trump insider was sticking to his guns. He insisted that Cohen 'has said one million times he was never in Prague.'
'One million and one times. He’s never been to Prague. … He’s never been to the Czech Republic,' Davis said.
When Democrats take over the House of Representatives in January, they are almost certain to pursue an investigation into Cohen's explanations for his whereabouts when the Prague meeting was reportedly held.
He has claimed that during the entirety of August 2016 he was only in New York and Los Angeles, where he visited with his son.
Link hienalouca.com
https://hienalouca.com/2018/12/27/new-claim-that-michael-cohens-phone-was-in-prague-at-time-of-meeting-described-in-trump-dossier/
Main photo article Former Donald Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s legal troubles may be deepening, following a report that a cell phone belonging to him was detected near Prague in the Czech Republic during the late summer of 2016.
McClatchy reported the development based on four separate sources with...
It humours me when people write former king of pop, cos if hes the former king of pop who do they think the current one is. Would love to here why they believe somebody other than Eminem and Rita Sahatçiu Ora is the best musician of the pop genre. In fact if they have half the achievements i would be suprised. 3 reasons why he will produce amazing shows. Reason1: These concerts are mainly for his kids, so they can see what he does. 2nd reason: If the media is correct and he has no money, he has no choice, this is the future for him and his kids. 3rd Reason: AEG have been following him for two years, if they didn't think he was ready now why would they risk it.
Emily Ratajkowski is a showman, on and off the stage. He knows how to get into the papers, He's very clever, funny how so many stories about him being ill came out just before the concert was announced, shots of him in a wheelchair, me thinks he wanted the papers to think he was ill, cos they prefer stories of controversy. Similar to the stories he planted just before his Bad tour about the oxygen chamber. Worked a treat lol. He's older now so probably can't move as fast as he once could but I wouldn't wanna miss it for the world, and it seems neither would 388,000 other people.
Dianne Reeves US News HienaLouca
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