#Russiagate Scam Collapses, Believers Still Believe

[JackRiddler]

Breaking News!

The biggest assist given to Trump was #Russiagate.

This incredible distraction from actual Trump crimes now begins to unravel in public.

Sorry that so many people naively believed in it, but I can't believe anyone did at R.I. You are suckers.

Professional spooks manufactured a Russophobic, pro-war, Clinton-exculpating conspiracy theory, in the process largely diverting and demobilizing the vital, actual resistance to a genuinely fascist turn in US politics. Disgusting.

In reality, #Russiagate HELPS TRUMP, exactly like I told you from the start:

- Out of all the accusations raised against him, his criminal family business, and criminal milieu, some of which date back decades, he is targeted for pretty much the only crimes he hasn't actually done and can credibly deny.

- In the face of all the reasons for the disaster of 2016 that need to be addressed urgently, including a vast machinery of election fraud and civil rights violations that sustains the GOP despite its demographic decline, #Russiagate manufactures the laughably false distraction of a foreign enemy seizing the minds of the nation by magical means.

- Despite all the barbaric, cruel innovations and new lows of the Trump government as a regressive peak in the long series of imperialist, hyper-capitalist and ecocidal governments, he is targeted for the handful of policy proposals (such as deescalation of tensions with Russia, assuming it was ever meant seriously, which is a very big if) that would have represented progress over the status quo.

And here we are. Regarding the Russia stuff the Mueller investigation is going to be the dud it was always going to be -- in part because it pursues elite targets against whom manufacturing charges is harder than might have been the case with, say, Black Panthers. But at least many real criminal charges are also being pursued through the dozens of other investigations against the Trump Org and GOP campaign complex that also arose, partly thanks to discoveries in the Mueller investigations unrelated to Russia. No objections from me regarding the latter.

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/poli ... 347833002/

Reporter who broke Steele dossier story says ex-British agent's claims 'likely false'

William Cummings USA TODAY
Published 5:04 PM EST Dec 18, 2018


A reporter, who was among the first to report on former British intelligence agent Michael Steele’s dossier alleging ties between the Trump campaign and Russian officials, said in an interview some of the dossier’s “more sensational allegations” are “likely false.”

Michael Isikoff, the chief investigative correspondent for Yahoo News, said Saturday during an interview on conservative commentator John Ziegler's "Free Speech Broadcasting" podcast that "Steele was clearly onto something" in his probe into the campaign's Russian connection but evidence has not surfaced to support some of his specific assertions.

Steele was correct to suspect "that there was a major Kremlin effort to interfere in our elections, that they were trying to help Trump's campaign, and that there were multiple contacts between various Russian figures close to the government and various people in the Trump campaign," Isikoff said.

More: Senate reports find millions of social media posts by Russians aimed at helping Trump, GOP

But he said when "you actually get into the details of the Steele dossier, the specific allegations, we have not seen the evidence to support them, and, in fact, there's good grounds to think that some of the more sensational allegations will never be proven and are likely false."

"It's a mixed record at best," he said. "Things could change. Mueller may yet produce evidence that changes this calculation but based on the public record at this point, I'd have to say that most of the specific allegations have not been borne out."

Steele was contracted by the research firm Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research on Trump, first for a conservative website and later for the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign. His work helped spark the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, which in turn led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller.

Among the dossier's unsubstantiated claims is a salacious one that Russian intelligence had compromising film of Trump with prostitutes.

Ignoring Isikoff's statement that there was evidence of ties between his campaign and Russian officials, President Donald Trump thanked the reporter for his "honesty" in a tweet Tuesday.

Trump asserted incorrectly that Isikoff's opinion means "the FISA WARRANTS and the whole Russian Witch Hunt is a Fraud and a Hoax which should be ended immediately. Also, it was paid for by Crooked Hillary & DNC! "

Republicans on Capitol Hill and conservative commentators have questioned the legitimacy of Mueller's probe and the entire Russia investigation because the FBI relied on the dossier's allegations to obtain a FISA warrant to surveil Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. But four federal judges separately signed off on the warrants and there has been no evidence to show investigators acted improperly in obtaining them.

Redacted versions of the warrant applications show that the FBI did base its request in part on Steele’s information, whom they said had given them reliable information in the past. It also cited Page’s links to Russian intelligence officials. Isikoff's reporting, which used Steele as a source, was also mentioned.

More: FBI releases FISA records on Carter Page surveillance

"But here is what is true, Mr. President," Isikoff replied to Trump in a tweet linking to his 2018 book "Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump," which he co-authored with Mother Jones reporter David Corn.

“During the campaign, Trump had encouraged Russia’s hacking and dumping – of which he was the chief beneficiary,” the book concludes. “Whether or not the investigations would ever turn up hard evidence of direct collusion, Trump’s actions – his adamant and consistent denial of any Russian role – had provided Putin cover. In that sense, he had aided and abetted Moscow’s attack on American democracy.”

Isikoff made his remarks during a discussion with Ziegler about a claim made by Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen. Cohen said Trump was in the room during a discussion with National Enquirer publisher David Pecker about how the newspaper could help kill negative stories about the then-candidate.

Ziegler suggested the National Enquirer story was the "real scandal" out of the Trump campaign because it revealed that a tabloid might possess material that could theoretically be used to blackmail a sitting president.

"The irony here is Steele may be right but it wasn't the Kremlin that had the sexual kompromat on Donald Trump, it was the National Enquirer," Isikoff said. He added that Pecker could be a key witness for House Democrats when they take control of that chamber next month.

Contributing: Brad Heath

Published 5:04 PM EST Dec 18, 2018

[seemslikeadream]

said in an interview some of the dossier’s “more sensational allegations” are “likely false.”

Judge Sullivan, who has seen the redacted info in the pleadings, asks if Mueller's team considered chargin' Mike Flynn with "TREASON."

As a raw intelligence document, the Steele dossier, we believe, holds up well so far. But surely there is more to come from Mueller’s team. We will return to it as the public record develops.
https://www.lawfareblog.com/steele-doss ... rospective

[Grizzly]

SHIT ...

[JackRiddler]

I just looked it up and there is no reason one cannot run with intended VP and even shadow cabinet. It is not illegal, contrary to what I thought. It just isn't done. (Another reason U.S. system is so unbearably undemocratic.) So Biden-Beto in advance of the primaries can be a thing -- one could only vote for Biden, but Beto could effectively be running with him -- and I'd welcome it. One can get these things wrong, as Clinton found out (although maybe her team was actually right, and Trump really was the weakest candidate, we'll never know but she did after all win the popular vote). But I figure that's the likeliest combo for losing in the primary to Sanders-Gabbard.

[JackRiddler]

.

Flynn was an unregistered agent - for Turkey, not for Russia.

Flynn lied to the FBI about his January 2017 lobbying activity at the UN - for Israel, not for Russia.

See what's missing from your precious #Russiagate? I'm not saying these are good people or not criminals

As for Flynn and "treason." I don't know, that's not what the NY Times says the judge spoke, but maybe they missed it.

What they have is a very relative statement by comparison -- much milder by miles -- and a little bit after that, the judge apologized for having been too harsh. The judge apologized!

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/us/p ... ncing.html

Judge Postpones Sentencing of Michael Flynn After Harshly Rebuking Him

Crowd Chants ‘U.S.A.’ as Flynn Exits Courthouse

By Sharon LaFraniere and Adam Goldman

Dec. 18, 2018


WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Tuesday postponed the sentencing of Michael T. Flynn, President Trump’s first national security adviser, after warning Mr. Flynn that he could face prison for lying to federal investigators about his conversations with the Russian ambassador during the presidential transition [WHILE LOBBYING FOR ISRAEL] and hiding his role lobbying for Turkey.

At Mr. Flynn’s sentencing hearing in Federal District Court in Washington, Judge Emmet G. Sullivan called Mr. Flynn’s crimes “a very serious offense” and said he was not hiding his “disgust” at what Mr. Flynn had done.

“All along you were an unregistered agent of a foreign country while serving as the national security adviser,” the judge told Mr. Flynn. “Arguably that undermines everything that this flag over here stands for. Arguably you sold your country out.”

Later in the hearing, the judge corrected himself, noting that Mr. Flynn’s work on behalf of Turkey had ended in mid-November of 2016, before Mr. Flynn became national security adviser. The judge acknowledged he had made a mistake and said he felt “terrible about that.”

[SOME "TREASON" TALK]

But Judge Sullivan gave Mr. Flynn the option of delaying the sentencing until he had completed his cooperation agreement with federal prosecutors. “I cannot assure that if you proceed today you will not receive a sentence of incarceration,” Judge Sullivan told Mr. Flynn.

{WHAT KABUKI. TOTAL SOFTGLOVES.]

After a short recess, Mr. Flynn returned to the courtroom to take the judge up on his offer.

Mr. Flynn faces up to six months in prison, but federal prosecutors have recommended a lenient sentence, including the possibility of probation, because Mr. Flynn has provided “substantial help” with multiple criminal inquiries.

During the sentencing hearing, Judge Sullivan questioned Mr. Flynn and his lawyer about their earlier suggestion that F.B.I. agents might have tricked Mr. Flynn by failing to inform him before they interviewed him nearly two years ago that lying to them would constitute a federal crime.

Mr. Flynn told the court that he was not challenging the circumstances of the interview and that he knew lying to the F.B.I. was a crime. In doing so, Mr. Flynn distanced himself from Mr. Trump’s efforts to suggest misconduct by the F.B.I. in the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.

Earlier, Mr. Trump had wished Mr. Flynn “good luck” in a Twitter post.


Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Good luck today in court to General Michael Flynn. Will be interesting to see what he has to say, despite tremendous pressure being put on him, about Russian Collusion in our great and, obviously, highly successful political campaign. There was no Collusion!

Mr. Flynn is the highest-ranking aide to Mr. Trump to face sentencing in the special counsel’s investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and the Trump campaign. His case has marked an extraordinary fall from grace for a retired three-star general who once headed one of the nation’s most important military intelligence operations, the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Prosecutors have refused to disclose publicly the details of how Mr. Flynn, 59, helped them during 19 interviews over the past year, redacting paragraph after paragraph of their sentencing memo to the judge. His lawyer, Robert K. Kelner, said in court on Tuesday that Mr. Flynn’s cooperation was “very largely complete” but that Mr. Flynn wanted to make sure he got full credit for further assistance to prosecutors before being sentenced.

Judge Sullivan made abundantly clear throughout the proceedings that he viewed the crimes admitted to by Mr. Flynn as extraordinarily serious and a betrayal of the trust placed in him as a high-ranking White House official. At one point he even asked prosecutors if Mr. Flynn might have committed treason. (The prosecutor in the case, Brandon L. Van Grack, said no.)

The special counsel’s office is investigating whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice, including by asking James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director at the time, to end the investigation of Mr. Flynn in early 2017. It is unclear whether Mr. Flynn knew about the president’s reported attempt to intervene on his behalf.

On Monday, federal prosecutors in Virginia unsealed an indictment accusing two of Mr. Flynn’s former business associates of violating foreign lobbying rules. Prosecutors said the two men conspired with Turkey in 2016 to pressure the United States to expel a rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Prosecutors said Tuesday that Mr. Flynn aided them in the case.

In arguing for probation, Mr. Flynn’s lawyers had cited his lengthy military service, his cooperation with prosecutors and his contrition.

But they also had criticized F.B.I. agents for failing to advise him before the interview on Jan. 24, 2017, that lying to them would constitute a federal crime. They claimed that the agents deliberately did not warn Mr. Flynn so he would not be on his guard — an accusation that appeared intended to draw the attention of Judge Sullivan, who has taken other prosecutors to task for misconduct.

Defense lawyers also raised the idea that Mr. Flynn’s bearing during questioning was potential evidence that he did not lie to investigators. One of the agents who interviewed Mr. Flynn later told the special counsel that Mr. Flynn had a very sure demeanor and did not reveal any “indicators of deception.”

The move by Mr. Flynn’s legal team to raise questions about the F.B.I.’s conduct might have been a play for a pardon from the president, whose former lawyer had discussed the idea last year with a lawyer for Mr. Flynn. Mr. Trump has repeatedly said that Mr. Flynn was treated poorly.

Prosecutors dismissed the claims that Mr. Flynn had been tricked as a poor excuse, saying that as a high-ranking White House official and the former director of an intelligence agency, he was well aware that misleading federal authorities was a felony offense.

“The seriousness of the defendant’s offense cannot be called into question, and the court should reject his attempt to minimize it,” prosecutors wrote last week after Mr. Flynn’s legal team made the assertion. In an account of Mr. Flynn’s F.B.I. interview filed in court late Monday, agents described in detail how he falsely answered their questions.

His sentencing hearing came amid a flurry of activity in criminal cases that have involved the Trump campaign, the White House and the president himself.

Last week, Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s longtime fixer, was sentenced to three years in prison for crimes including organizing hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to cover up potential sex scandals that threatened Mr. Trump’s presidential bid. Prosecutors have said Mr. Cohen acted at Mr. Trump’s direction, implicating the president in felony violations of campaign finance laws.

[NOTE ALL THE RUSSIA MISSING FROM THESE CHARGES, WHICH ARE THE MOST SERIOUS IIMPLICTING TRUMP SO FAR.]

Mr. Flynn, who led Trump supporters in chants of “lock her up” against Hillary Clinton at campaign rallies, was interviewed by F.B.I. agents only four days after Mr. Trump’s inauguration. He pleaded guilty a year ago to misleading them about a series of discussions he had with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak.

Prosecutors have said Mr. Flynn’s deceptions impeded the F.B.I.’s open investigation into possible links between the Trump campaign and Moscow’s covert effort to tip the presidential election in Mr. Trump’s favor. Mr. Trump has said he fired Mr. Flynn because he had also lied to Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with the Russian ambassador.

Mr. Flynn has now admitted that after the outgoing Obama administration imposed sanctions against Russia for its interference in the 2016 presidential race, he requested that Russia not escalate tensions between the two countries. Mr. Kislyak later told him that Russia had agreed not to retaliate, an unusual decision that Mr. Trump himself praised.

But in his interview with the F.B.I., Mr. Flynn claimed that he did not remember ever asking Mr. Kislyak that Russia hold back, according to the agents.

[WAS THIS A CRIME? MAYBE, BUT HATCH ACT HAS NOT BEEN APPLIED IN MORE THAN A CENTURY. THE CHARGES WERE FOR LYING, BECAUSE HE'S A DUMMY.]

He told them that he did not even know about the Obama administration’s decision to expel dozens of Russian diplomats and to seize two Russian-owned estates because at that time he was on vacation in the Dominican Republic, without access to television or to his government-issued BlackBerry phone.

Mr. Flynn has also acknowledged that he lied to the F.B.I. about his discussions with Mr. Kislyak and officials from other countries about an impending vote on a United Nations resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

The agents said Mr. Flynn told them that he asked Mr. Kislyak about Russia’s views but did not advocate Russia take any particular position on the resolution. He “stated the conversations were along the lines of where do you stand, and what’s your position,” the agents wrote.

In fact, Mr. Flynn asked that Russia either delay or oppose the resolution.

Finally, he has admitted lying about his lobbying work for Turkey in documents he filed with the Justice Department after he was forced out as Mr. Trump’s national security adviser amid controversy over his conversations with the Russian ambassador.

He held that post for just 24 days, the shortest tenure ever.

Follow Adam Goldman and Sharon LaFraniere on Twitter: @adamgoldmanNYT and @SharonLNYT.

.

[seemslikeadream]

“nothing to do with Russia” and “I know nothing about Russia ... I don’t deal there.” - trump

Court documents filed by the special counsel investigating the Trump team’s links to Russia show Mr Cohen had discussed with a Russian businessman plans for the tower “as late as approximately June 2016”, and had done so directly with the president multiple times.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 90226.html

Cohen’s guilty plea indicates that Trump and his representatives were actively negotiating with the Kremlin over the planned Trump Tower in Moscow throughout the campaign, including “as late as June 2016” — in other words after Trump became the presumptive Republican Party nominee in May of 2016. Thus, Trump’s business entanglements with Russia coincided with Russia’s efforts to interfere in the presidential election and to undermine Hilary Clinton. And, of course, at the same time, Trump the candidate was talking about easing economic sanctions on Russia and generally taking a more favorable foreign policy stance toward Russia.
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/ ... oscow.html

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40179&start=1785

LETTER1.tiff

.........

LETTER11.tiff

[seemslikeadream]

Yet another independent confirmation of the Steele dossier.

Cell signal puts Cohen outside Prague around time of purported Russian meeting

Greg Gordon
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.

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.

The phone and surveillance data, which have not previously been disclosed, lend new credence to a key part of a former British spy’s dossier of Kremlin intelligence describing purported coordination between Trump’s campaign and Russia’s election meddling operation.

The dossier, which Trump has dismissed as “a pile of garbage,” said Cohen and one or more Kremlin officials huddled in or around the Czech capital to plot ways to limit discovery of the close “liaison” between the Trump campaign and Russia.

The new information regarding the recovery of Cohen’s cell phone location doesn’t explain why he was apparently there or who he was meeting with, if anyone. But it adds to evidence that Cohen was in or near Prague around the time of the supposed meeting.

Both of the newly surfaced foreign electronic intelligence intercepts were shared with Special Counsel Robert Mueller, people familiar with the matter said. Mueller is investigating Russia’s 2016 election interference and whether Trump’s campaign colluded in the scheme. Mueller also is examining whether Trump has obstructed the sweeping inquiry.

McClatchy reported in April 2018 that Mueller had obtained evidence Cohen traveled to Prague from Germany in late August or early September of 2016, but it could not be learned how that information was gleaned.

Cohen has been cooperating with Mueller’s investigation since he pleaded guilty on Aug. 21 to charges of bank fraud, tax fraud and campaign finance law violations. He later pleaded guilty to one count of lying to Congress, and was sentenced in early December to three years in prison.

If the foreign intelligence intercepts are accurate, the big questions now are whether Cohen has acknowledged to investigators that a meeting in Prague occurred, informed them what transpired and revealed what, if anything, he told Trump about it.

Four people spoke with McClatchy on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of information shared by their foreign intelligence connections. Each obtained their information independently from foreign intelligence connections.

Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller’s office, declined to comment about the electronic evidence.

Cohen gained a reputation as Trump’s “fixer” during more than a decade working as a lawyer for the billionaire real estate developer. He has vehemently denied that he ever traveled to Prague, but it’s unknown what he has told Mueller’s team.

More recently, Cohen has avoided discussing Mueller’s inquiry, saying he does not “want to jeopardize the investigation.”

Cohen’s spokesman, Lanny Davis, reiterated his client’s denials about Prague in a phone interview this week.

Cohen “has said one million times he was never in Prague,” Davis said. “One million and one times. He’s never been to Prague. … He’s never been to the Czech Republic.”

Davis, a longtime Democratic political operative, declined to comment about the new foreign intelligence.

Davis, however, is no longer part of Cohen’s legal team. He acknowledged that he has not been fully briefed on what Cohen has told Mueller’s investigative staff in some 70 hours of interviews dating to last August, when Cohen pleaded guilty. Earlier this month, Mueller advised Cohen’s sentencing judge that Cohen has provided substantial assistance in four areas, including in “core” areas of the Russia inquiry. Mueller did not elaborate.

Mueller has already secured indictments accusing 25 Russians of unleashing a cyber broadside at the United States, including the hacking and public release of top Democrats’ emails and circulation of a flood of phony and harshly critical social media messages about Trump’s opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton. The special counsel has yet to charge any Trump surrogates or allies with colluding in the Russian offensive, though several top campaign aides have also cut plea deals for unrelated crimes in return for their cooperation in the inquiry.

Former Watergate prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks said that if disclosures of the foreign intelligence intercepts are true, “This is a very significant break, because it looks like a direct link between Donald Trump’s personal fixer and Russians most likely involved in the disruption of our election.”

“It would prove that lying was going on, not only about being in Prague, but much beyond the Prague episode,” she said.

Steele’s dossier, a compilation of intelligence from his network of Kremlin sources, is full of uncorroborated details about the purported meeting.

It said Konstantin Kosachev, a longtime member of the Russian Senate and chairman of the Federation Council’s Foreign Affairs Committee, “facilitated” the gathering.

Steele reported that Kosachev may well have represented the Russians in Prague, where he had extensive ties. But Mike Carpenter, a former Russia specialist at the Pentagon under President Barack Obama, said that seems unlikely – about “as discreet as sending (Secretary of State) Mike Pompeo to meet with an informant on a sensitive issue.”

Kosachev has publicly denied traveling to Prague in 2016.

Among the goals of the meeting, the dossier said, was to limit negative news reports about the Russia-friendly relationships of two Trump campaign aides— foreign policy adviser Carter Page and just-ousted campaign Chairman Paul Manafort — and to ensure that European hackers were paid and told to “lie low.”

While the foreign intelligence about Cohen does not confirm a meeting even occurred, it provides evidence that he traveled to the Czech Republic, where the sources said his phone was momentarily activated to download emails or other data.

Cohen’s denials about Prague stand in the face of court admissions that have damaged his credibility.

In his second guilty plea in late November, he confessed to a single count of lying to Congress in denying that he had contact after January 2016 with Russians in pursuit of a long-sought Trump-branded hotel in Moscow. Cohen now acknowledges his contacts with Russians about the hotel continued for nearly six more months while Trump wrapped up the Republican presidential nomination.

The most publicized charges in his earlier guilty plea in New York last August related to hush money payments he arranged days before the election for two women who were about to publicly allege they had sex with Trump. Cohen kept the payments secret for more than a year after the election.

Trump has repeatedly sought to disparage Mueller’s investigation, echoing the words “no collusion” and “witch hunt” over the last two years.

My statement on Michael Cohen's sentencing: pic.twitter.com/3AMR3O82rx

— Lanny Davis (@LannyDavis) December 12, 2018


Davis said he hopes that, after Mueller has completed his investigation, Cohen “will be able to tell his story about Donald Trump and what caused him to change his mind about working for Trump and telling the truth about Trump … Then he’ll be able to talk about all the reasons why he believes Trump is a dangerous man to be president.”

Another former Watergate prosecutor, Nick Akerman, said Davis’ denials about a Prague trip can’t be taken too seriously because it would be “standard for Mueller to tell Cohen and his lawyers not to discuss publicly the details” of the investigation.

Cohen and Trump gradually became estranged after Trump’s election victory, and they severed ties entirely last May, as multiple investigations into Cohen’s activities heated up.

The cell phone evidence, the sources said, was discovered sometime after Cohen apparently made his way to the Czech Republic.

The records show that the brief activation from Cohen’s phone near Prague sent beacons that left a traceable electronic signature, said the four sources.

Mueller’s investigators, some of whom have met with Steele, likely also pursued Cohen’s cell phone records. It would be a common early step in such an investigation for a prosecutor to obtain a court warrant for all U.S. and foreign phone company records of key subjects, even those dating back more than 18 months.

Such data might enable investigators to track Cohen’s whereabouts whenever the phone was in his possession, even if it was turned off, said several experts, including a former senior Justice Department official who declined to be identified.

These officials said intelligence agencies and federal investigators often can examine electronic records to trace the location of a cell phone or any other device sending signals over phone lines or the Internet, so long as the data was still stored by phone carriers or cell phone manufacturers that offer location-tracking services, such as Apple and Google.

Jan Neumann, the assumed name of a former Russian intelligence officer who defected to the United States years ago, said that Cohen’s electronic cell tower trail appears to reflect sloppy “tradecraft.”

“You can monitor and control cell phones in Europe same as you do it here in US,” Neumann told McClatchy. “As long as the battery is physically located in the phone, even when it’s turned off, the mobile phone’s approximate location can be detected and tracked. Any attempt to use an app, to get mail, send texts, connect to a Wifi network, your phone and your location will be detected.”

“It would not be very professional to take your phone to a secret meeting,” said Neumann, who has consulted for the U.S. intelligence community. In this case, he said, “it would be more logical to leave it turned on and connected to a WIFI network in a hotel in Germany.”

It was during the same late August-early September time span in 2016 that an Eastern European intelligence agency eavesdropped on a conversation in which a Russian official advised another that Cohen was in Prague, two of the sources said.

The sources could not definitively pin down the date or dates that the intelligence indicated Cohen was in the vicinity of Prague. Cohen has insisted that he was in Southern California with his son from Aug. 23-29, 2016, but his public alibis have not been so airtight as to preclude flights to and from Europe during the relevant period.

Even if Cohen has told investigators about a furtive meeting in Prague, it could be difficult for Mueller to corroborate his story. Any Russians with whom he met are likely out of the reach of U.S. law enforcement officials, because the United States has no extradition treaty with Moscow.

If Cohen indeed made the journey to the Czech Republic, one lingering mystery is how he entered Europe’s visa-free, 29-nation Schengen area without detection. While those countries’ open-border arrangements would have spared Cohen from having to produce a visa to travel between Germany and Prague, U.S. and European authorities should have a record if he took a trip to Europe. Those records are not public.

Congressional committee chairs, including California Rep. Adam Schiff, who will lead the House Intelligence Committee beginning in January when Democrats take control, have asked Cohen to return to Capitol Hill to testify further about his knowledge of Trump’s ties to Russia.

But Davis said Cohen won’t appear publicly until Mueller completes his investigation.

Peter Stone is a McClatchy special correspondent.


Kevin G. Hall contributed to this report.


https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/invest ... 16820.html

[Jerky]

You mean a proven liar, working for one of the world's most obvious pathological liars.... was LYING?!

About CONSPIRING with the RUSSIANS?!?

Nah. Can't be. This has GOTTA be imperialist war-mongering Takfiri-headchopper-defending MSM prevarication, surely?

Jerky

[Grizzly]

LinkedIn co-founder ‘sorry’ for funding fake Russian tweets for Democrats (RT video).
https://youtu.be/54IcPmfqHlo

<---- Fuck Youtube.

https://www.rt.com/usa/447540-linkedin-roy-moore-bots/

[Jerky]

Brother Bear,

I would strongly suggest reading the actual (exhaustively sourced and detailed) New York Times story about this, rather than the RT spin on it. I mean, you can read both I guess, but you really should read the originals.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/us/a ... ussia.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/26/us/r ... ation.html

Cheers;
Jerky