McClatchy reported back in April that Special Counsel Robert Mueller obtained evidence that Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer, “secretly made a late-summer trip to Prague during the 2016 presidential campaign.” If true, it would not only bolster a key detail raised in the Christopher Steele dossier, it would also reinforce concerns about pre-election collusion between Russians and Trump’s operation.
A Washington Post report added a while back that if Cohen were shown to have visited Prague during the campaign, it would be “a huge development in the Russia investigation.”
With this in mind, consider the new report from McClatchy today.
A mobile phone traced to President Donald Trump’s former lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen briefly sent signals ricocheting off cell towers in the Prague area in late summer 2016, at the height of the presidential campaign, leaving an electronic record to support claims that Cohen met secretly there with Russian officials, four people with knowledge of the matter say.
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During the same period of late August or early September, electronic eavesdropping by an Eastern European intelligence agency picked up a conversation among Russians, one of whom remarked that Cohen was in Prague, two people familiar with the incident said.
None of this has been independently confirmed by MSNBC or NBC News. Cohen and his attorney have denied on the record that he was ever in Prague for any reason.
It’s hard to know what to make of the revelations, if anything, but while digesting the latest reporting, consider Rachel’s segment from April on how the reporting may fit into the larger context.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
