Natasha Bertrand has interesting Cohen-related tweets today.

[pnwmom]

(She linked to an article not written in English.)

ON UPDATE: She doesn't mention the possibility that Cohen's phone -- loaded with contact info -- was lent to someone else, and went to Prague without him. But no one asked Cohen about that in the public hearing.

Link to tweet

The dossier says Michael Cohen went to Prague to pay off Russian hackers in 2016. Now we learn--according to this story--that the FSB had two hacking entities operating there, undercover, until 2018.

According to Respekt's sources, "the attacks" by these FSB hacking entities "were to be carried out in a coordinated manner, even against targets abroad, and the technology was deployed in more places to make it more difficult to detect." (rough translation.)/div]

[triron]

1. I have been looking into this. See my post:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211929638

There hasn't been much interest so far it seems.

[gratuitous]

2. Didn't Cohen just testify that he's never been to Prague?

Somebody isn't telling the truth.

[SoCalDem]

3. Cities have suburbs

One side of a street could be Prague, the other side could be another city/town....

and when you drive from city to city, there are no passport stamps..

The fact that he so adamantly brought up the passport thing, I had a suspicion that he was careful to NOT be inside Prague city-limits..

[OnDoutside]

7. Bearing in mind the amateurish nature of the Trump

Cronies, that may be giving him too much credit. I'm sure Mueller does know, and I hope we get to see the facts in time.

[Sunsky]

12. He did testify that he has never been to the Czech Republic

Would that same no passport stamp rule apply if he was in another country?

[SoCalDem]

13. They are part of the EU.

.no passport stamping required once you are IN the EU..He could have driven/been driven from ANY EU country..stayed a few hours for the meeting, and then left..

[Sunsky]

14. Ok thanks for clearing that up nt

[okaawhatever]

4. I have to wonder if the intel got the name wrong, but the meeting right. So far, nothing

has proven wrong in the report. The author, Christopher Steele, explains in the report that the info was based on human intelligence, which could be wrong. That being said, Prague keeps popping up in stories about the Trump/Russia investigation so it seems there's some there, there. Maybe a meeting, but with another rep for Trump there?

BTW I believed Cohen when he testified that he hadn't been to Prague.

[pnwmom]

6. No one asked if he'd given one of his phones, filled with contact info, to someone else

for a trip to Prague.

[pnwmom]

5. He kept a bunch of burner phones. So another possibility

is that he gave one of his extra phones -- filled with his contact info -- to someone else, who gave it back to him after the trip.

So his phone could have gone to Prague without him.

[NewJeffCT]

10. I think you're right

When he first "flipped" last year, he still insisted that he'd never been to Prague, but added that "Mueller knows everything" or something like that, so it seems like a strong possibility that either his phone (or one of his phones) went to Prague or else Cohen went to a suburb of Prague/just outside the city.

[uponit7771]

9. Yes, ... no one asked him if he went out of country around that time. Cohen has been playing ...

... with words and one of the reasons only his documented testimony to me is worth anything.

[wiggs]

11. He claimed he was 'vacationing' in Italy...right before the election. The person he said he was

there to be with saw him but didn't hang.

There's always been something mysterious about the trip. Always been something quite not right with the whole Cohen story. Could be that he's told investigators a lot more behind closed doors...or it could be he's still taking a bullet for Trump.

[EndGOPPropaganda]

8. Agreed this is interesting. Thanks

A few prior facts:

Cohen told WSJ about a decade ago that he HAD been to Prague. That inconsistency with his recent denial may mean nothing, but it’s never been explained.

The dossier is raw intel and we should expect some of it to be wrong. Normally intel product like this is carefully analyzed before any of it would reach the public. Steele himself estimated that only 80% of it is true.