Michael Cohen’s collaboration with Special Counsel Robert Mueller hasn’t prompted him to shift from one of the most famous denials in the 28-month Trump-Russia investigation.
He’s never been to Prague, his lawyer, Lanny Davis said Sunday night. “Ever. Never.”
The Prague trip was the most sensational of a number of Russian collusion charges from former British spy Christopher Steele and his Democratic Party-financed dossier. The dossier became mandatory reading for FBI agents as they launched an investigation into the Trump campaign and obtained at least one wiretap based on its unproven allegations.
In his telling, Mr. Steele said then-Trump attorney Cohen secretly traveled to Prague in August 2016, in the heat of the campaign against Hillary Clinton, to meet with Vladimir Putin aides and pay cash to cover up a conspiracy to hack Democratic Party computers.
Mr. Cohen immediately, and then repeatedly, denied he went to Prague.
But the bombshell disclosure that he began cooperating with Mr. Mueller had liberals on social media anticipating that he would finally, in their view, tell the truth.
Mr. Davis, a longtime Bill and Hillary Clinton loyalist, disappointed during Kasie Hunt’s MSNBC show.
“Everybody, America, we all love Kasie’s show,” he said.
“No. No Prague ever, never,” he said in a clip posted on Twitter by the Daily Caller’s Chuck Ross.
He said an exasperated Cohen at one point told him, “Just don’t answer it anymore because it is just one these silly things that constantly gets repeated. So the answer is, no. . .he’s never been to Prague. A reporter asked me, ’what about the suburbs of Prague?’ No.”
Mr. Steele narrated an elaborate conspiracy around the supposed Prague visit that involve cash payments to hackers in conjunction with Kremlin liaison by Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and volunteer Carter Page.
To this day, all three deny the Steele narration as fiction. There has been no public confirmation of any of this alleged illegal activity.
McClatchy news service reported that new evidence surfaced within the Mueller operation that Mr. Cohen went to Prague. That story has remained unconfirmed. There has been no hint in any Mueller court filings that Mr. Cohen conspired in Russian election interference.
Glenn Simpson, the co-founder of investigative firm Fusion GPS which hired Mr. Steele, told Congress that Mr. Cohen has not done enough to disprove Prague. Mr. Simpson said Mr. Cohen could have traveled there by yacht and Russian plane.
• Rowan Scarborough can be reached at rscarborough@washingtontimes.com.
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