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The Russia Investigation: Trump Pardons Flynn (9 Viewers)

Biff84 said:
Maybe it’s possible that they are both telling the truth. Cohen never physically went to Prague but instead sent someone else with his cell phone to meet with them in Prague that he used to communicate back with Cohen and maybe with others in the campaign.
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Um, wouldn't it have been easier to buy a couple of burner phones?

 
Biff84 said:
Maybe it’s possible that they are both telling the truth. Cohen never physically went to Prague but instead sent someone else with his cell phone to meet with them in Prague that he used to communicate back with Cohen and maybe with others in the campaign.
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Oh, come on.  It's not like he's got a wife with a Ukrainian father who is how he met Trump in the first place, and whose phone would be on the same account as Cohen's, who's been flying completely under the radar in this whole.... oh, GD it. Now I'm down the rabbit hole, too.

 
My PSA for the day....any time you see a report on a person's location but they aren't sure how it was figured out, it's cell phone records.  99.999999999999999999999999999999% of the time its cell phone connections to the network.  People are gleefully ignorant of how much data is collected by these companies and others.

 
jerry jones said:
While recognizing that my opinion means nothing, I don’t think there should be a gray area for our “leaders”  now,  I do think that there should be levels of penalty...minimum would be removal from position and ineligible to run for a public office. If you can take away the right to vote from a convicted felon you could certainly do this 
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You're late to the party and brought a crappy gift.

 
The Commish said:
My PSA for the day....any time you see a report on a person's location but they aren't sure how it was figured out, it's cell phone records.  99.999999999999999999999999999999% of the time its cell phone connections to the network.  People are gleefully ignorant of how much data is collected by these companies and others.
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So we should Czech the report?

 
I don’t see Cohen’s motivation to lie about this now especially while saying that Mueller knows everything. He doesn’t seem to be denying the story, only that he personally wasn’t in Prague.

 
Biff84 said:
I don’t see Cohen’s motivation to lie about this now especially while saying that Mueller knows everything. He doesn’t seem to be denying the story, only that he personally wasn’t in Prague.
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His motivation is to avoid collusion charges, treason charges, and deeper legal trouble.

He's only cooperated on a limited number of things, which means he's still withholding information about other illegal activities he knows about.  

 
adonis said:
His motivation is to avoid collusion charges, treason charges, and deeper legal trouble.

He's only cooperated on a limited number of things, which means he's still withholding information about other illegal activities he knows about.  
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I’d be surprised if he was holding back from Mueller. It seems like he was from the NY prosecutors but Mueller was satisfied with his level of cooperation. If he thought he was lying about something major like this, he would have gotten the Manafort treatment.

Of course the easiest answer is that the liar is lying, but why publicly deny it on Twitter?

 
Bucky86 said:
Giuliani says it's not illegal to receive stolen emails. 
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I'll call that doubtful. Here's Lawfare with a pretty detailed analysis from a year and a half ago. 

I wonder if this was just Giuliani spouting off because he hasn't heard himself speak in a few weeks, or if we're getting some investigative reporting or maybe an indictment to drop in the next few days.

 
Biff84 said:
I’d be surprised if he was holding back from Mueller. It seems like he was from the NY prosecutors but Mueller was satisfied with his level of cooperation. If he thought he was lying about something major like this, he would have gotten the Manafort treatment.

Of course the easiest answer is that the liar is lying, but why publicly deny it on Twitter?
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I really don't know what to make of it. These McClatchy reporters are professionals; they got four sources confirming the report, so it's not like they're just repeating rumors they heard. On the other hand, if it is true, why would Cohen deny it so categorically?

In the end, it doesn't really matter if we know this right now. Either it happened or it didn't, and if it did, either Mueller knows about it or he doesn't.

 
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Mr. Ham said:
A more crisp version of my thoughts on the matter.  I can think of reasons he might lie:

  • Meeting with senior Russian officials to pay them for hacking is treason, period
  • If he has shared this with Mueller, prosecutors may have asked him to remain cagey about what he’s revealed 
  • He may be afraid of what the Russians will do to he and his family eventually 
  • Though he talked about the crimes he’d already been caught doing, he might still lie about others knowing Trump knows this and might still pardon him (including for other crimes that might get him years more in prison)
Or he wasn’t there.  No way to know.  But if he was there, and especially if there were foreign intercepts, Mueller knows and the truth will come out when it’s strategically beneficial to Mueller.
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Yeah, none of those reasons really hold water. If he's legit scared of the Russians, he'd be acting more like Manafort. The Trump pardon ship has clearly sailed. And if Mueller knows about it and asked him to be cagey, why deny it so categorically?

Then again, in order for any of this to make sense at least one of our current assumptions has to be wrong. So who knows? We'll presumably find out soon enough.

 
Mr. Ham said:
His phone didn’t ping itself near Prague.
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Well, we don't really know it was "his" phone.

The reporting is: "A mobile phone traced to President Donald Trump’s former lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen"

This suggests, to me, that its not his primary phone, and the connection to Cohen could be as tenuous as he pays the bill.

I think people are jumping the gun a bit here - and finding that 1+1 = 3

And, for all we know, Steele had access to similar data when he drew the conclusion that Cohen was in Prague.

There might be something with this - but based on the information released, it is premature, at best, to suggest it means Cohen, himself, was in Prague.

 
Sinn Fein said:
Well, we don't really know it was "his" phone.

The reporting is: "A mobile phone traced to President Donald Trump’s former lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen"

This suggests, to me, that its not his primary phone, and the connection to Cohen could be as tenuous as he pays the bill.

I think people are jumping the gun a bit here - and finding that 1+1 = 3

And, for all we know, Steele had access to similar data when he drew the conclusion that Cohen was in Prague.

There might be something with this - but based on the information released, it is premature, at best, to suggest it means Cohen, himself, was in Prague.
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Right.  It was clearly his wife, who I assume is the Keyser Soze in all of this.

 
Sinn Fein said:
Well, we don't really know it was "his" phone.

The reporting is: "A mobile phone traced to President Donald Trump’s former lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen"

This suggests, to me, that its not his primary phone, and the connection to Cohen could be as tenuous as he pays the bill.

I think people are jumping the gun a bit here - and finding that 1+1 = 3

And, for all we know, Steele had access to similar data when he drew the conclusion that Cohen was in Prague.

There might be something with this - but based on the information released, it is premature, at best, to suggest it means Cohen, himself, was in Prague.
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I take ‘a phone traced to Michael Cohen’ as meaning the intelligence community has intercepted communication of Cohen using that phone. I know their idiots but I doubt they registered a bunch of phones under his own name.

I’m also very skeptical of Mueller asking him to be publicly cagey about the subject, that doesn’t seem to be his style. If anything he would tell him to #### about it publicly.

There’s a few options:

1. He’s lying publicly and to Mueller and actually did go to Prague.

2. He’s lying publicly but has told Mueller everything.

3. The article and the 4 sources are completely wrong and neither Cohen or his phone were ever in Prague.

4. The article and Cohen are both telling the truth with something crazy like his phone was there but he physically wasn’t.

#1 and #3 seem unlikely and #2 would risk his cooperation agreement if Mueller isn’t in on it.

 
Sinn Fein said:
And, for all we know, Steele had access to similar data when he drew the conclusion that Cohen was in Prague.
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This is possible. Steele was memorializing raw intelligence and maybe that's what McClatchy is getting from its sources. The dossier has other characters besides Sources A-E. There is also a "Trump campaign insider" for instance, and the Prague claims come from a "Kremlin insider." Steele had access to a wide variety of source reportage, and that may have included part of the same circle that McClatchy has. This particular report was from mid-October 2016 - at this point Cohen had been in touch with Peskov himself about Trump Tower and just a month later Peskov was in NYC where Cohen and Trump were. In August though Cohen would have been meeting with a very prominent politician, essentially the Russian Senate's foreign affairs committee chairman (as a comp), in Prague itself. It just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Otoh it makes total sense that Trump would conduct such things strictly through Cohen. The guy received a backdoor Ukraine peace proposal from pro-Putin legislator by hand for crying out loud. And I have zero doubt these yahoos would have operational security that bad, totally believable to me if Cohen did go that he would use his phone. Still it seems totally unnecessary for Cohen to go to Prague to meet with this specific guy for these purposes.

It's possible that this is from the European intelligence community rumor mill about eavesdropping in eastern Europe. Names and places get confused, and people speculate, just like in normal life.

That report is particularly muddled because it contains an addendum which refers to a prior report which isn't in the published dossier, and it describes a Cohen meeting not in Prague and not with Kosachev but with someone from Putin's staff in "an operationally 'soft' EU country." That piece does seem to fit with Cohen's travel patterns, especially given the availability of private planes. However that also was supposed to have happened in August 2016. - eta - Reading the dossier piece about Prague it sounds like there was a prior report (which we don't have) which refers to Cohen going to an operationally soft EU country to meet with someone from Putin's administration. It sounds to me like later it turns out that Kosachev, a leading politician from the Russian Parliament, may have gone to Prague (and btw he also denies that) and whoever Steele was talking to speculated that that must have been who Cohen met with and that Czech Rep. was the country. 

 
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Biff84 said:
I take ‘a phone traced to Michael Cohen’ as meaning the intelligence community has intercepted communication of Cohen using that phone. I know their idiots but I doubt they registered a bunch of phones under his own name.

I’m also very skeptical of Mueller asking him to be publicly cagey about the subject, that doesn’t seem to be his style. If anything he would tell him to #### about it publicly.

There’s a few options:

1. He’s lying publicly and to Mueller and actually did go to Prague.

2. He’s lying publicly but has told Mueller everything.

3. The article and the 4 sources are completely wrong and neither Cohen or his phone were ever in Prague.

4. The article and Cohen are both telling the truth with something crazy like his phone was there but he physically wasn’t.

#1 and #3 seem unlikely and #2 would risk his cooperation agreement if Mueller isn’t in on it.
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I think it's very possible was just a ping off a cell tower.  Location sort of thing.  Which could literally just be putting a sim card on his cell account into a cell phone while in Prague.

 
FTR I'm pretty sure I have at least 20 iPhones, Blackberrys, random bricks and Motorola StarTecs laying about. I haven't seen it reported he had 16 active phones. Sixteen seems like a lot but IDK what is normal.

 
Henry Ford said:
That was in answer to the question:

Direct quote from Cohen just after the campaign:

Just to be clear, Prague is still in the Czech Republic, right?
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I can't imagine Mueller didn't bother to look at Cohen's cell phone records.  His indictment for lying to the SCO didn't include anything about Prague, or his outright denial of collusion altogether.  

Cohen may be lying about whether he's been to Prague in his lifetime or not, but there's no indication he's lying here.  

 
ren hoek said:
I can't imagine Mueller didn't bother to look at Cohen's cell phone records.  His indictment for lying to the SCO didn't include anything about Prague, or his outright denial of collusion altogether.  

Cohen may be lying about whether he's been to Prague in his lifetime or not, but there's no indication he's lying here.  
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"Here" was a question of whether he had been to Prague in his lifetime.  That's the "NO" you posted.

 
Henry Ford said:
"Here" was a question of whether he had been to Prague in his lifetime.  That's the "NO" you posted.
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No one cares if Michael Cohen was in Prague 14 years ago.  They care whether he was in Prague in 2016 as the piss dossier alleges.  There's no indication that his statements to that end (the one that actually matters) were false.  

 
ren hoek said:
No one cares if Michael Cohen was in Prague 14 years ago.  They care whether he was in Prague in 2016 as the piss dossier alleges.  There's no indication that his statements to that end (the one that actually matters) were false.  
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Oh, the one you weren't posting a "NO" to.  So what was the point of that post?

Also, there appears to be some indication in that a cell tower near Prague pinged a phone of his.

 
Encyclopedia Brown said:
Mueller supposedly is in possession of a nude selfie. 

No word on who it is. 
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:mellow:

I hope this is kept classified. Among my favorite Twitter reactions.

Asha Rangappa‏ @AshaRangappa_ 19h19 hours ago

dear God please tell us what we have done to deserve this I promise I will repent for the rest of my life but for the love of all that is holy do not release a nude selfie of *anyone* involved in the Trump campaign or make me comment about it on TV thank you amen

https://twitter.com/AshaRangappa_/status/1078400854799970304

 
squistion said:
:mellow:

I hope this is kept classified. Among my favorite Twitter reactions.

Asha Rangappa‏ @AshaRangappa_ 19h19 hours ago

dear God please tell us what we have done to deserve this I promise I will repent for the rest of my life but for the love of all that is holy do not release a nude selfie of *anyone* involved in the Trump campaign or make me comment about it on TV thank you amen

https://twitter.com/AshaRangappa_/status/1078400854799970304
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:lmao:

 
https://youtu.be/Spn1mNJ9vBI

I hate to give Joy Reid and her timetraveling hacker credit here, but she asks Greg Gordon some poignant questions.  Good thing he didn't go on Maddow, no question that would have been a softball interview.  

Is this what a weaselly spook stenographer looks like?  McClatchy reporters never saw the purported electronic intercepts.  

 
Henry Ford said:
Right.  It was clearly his wife, who I assume is the Keyser Soze in all of this.
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Doesn't have to be a wife.  

He ran a taxi business on the side, right?  I could see one of his lackeys getting a "company" phone

Maybe Little Steven borrowed a phone  :shrug:

I am just saying, the reporting has been oddly specific about "a phone" traced to Cohen, rather than "Cohen was in Prague."

 
ren hoek said:
https://youtu.be/Spn1mNJ9vBI

I hate to give Joy Reid and her timetraveling hacker credit here, but she asks Greg Gordon some poignant questions.  Good thing he didn't go on Maddow, no question that would have been a softball interview.  

Is this what a weaselly spook stenographer looks like?  McClatchy reporters never saw the purported electronic intercepts.  
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Seems like a good interview.  He seems reasonable, as does she. "You always have to be aware your sources may be lying, we don't think they are, by the same token we haven't gotten all available information from them.  That being the case, it's still a story in the public interest."

 
ren hoek said:
McClatchy reporters never saw the purported electronic intercepts.  
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Good lord, of course not. I’ll add that a FISA warrant might be needed just for DOJ to access them. However Mueller has all of Cohen’s devices and almost certainly his data already anyway and has for a long time. 

 
Sinn Fein said:
I am just saying, the reporting has been oddly specific about "a phone" traced to Cohen, rather than "Cohen was in Prague."
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It’s actually two fact points - the phone ping and also surveillance:

>>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.<<

 
ren hoek said:
https://youtu.be/Spn1mNJ9vBI

I hate to give Joy Reid and her timetraveling hacker credit here, but she asks Greg Gordon some poignant questions.  Good thing he didn't go on Maddow, no question that would have been a softball interview.  

Is this what a weaselly spook stenographer looks like?  McClatchy reporters never saw the purported electronic intercepts.  
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Reid is probably the best interviewer MSNBC has and tends to zero in on the right questions to ask. Maddow would not have made it a softball interview but probably wouldn't have been able to cut to the chase like Reid that quickly.

McClatchy is still the only source reporting this and have gone out on a limb in that respect, but they have an excellent track record and are generally cautious before running with something before they feel sure that they are on solid ground.

 
SaintsInDome2006 said:
However Mueller has all of Cohen’s devices and almost certainly his data already anyway and has for a long time. 
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Right.  Which makes it a little ridiculous that Cohen wouldn't have been charged for lying to Congress about Prague, and then being so cavalier about lying about it on Twitter.  

 
ren hoek said:
Right.  Which makes it a little ridiculous that Cohen wouldn't have been charged for lying to Congress about Prague, and then being so cavalier about lying about it on Twitter.  
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Well I think the point’s been made that the Prague visit were it true was not in the sentencing memos. However it’s not ridiculous to suggest that either Mueller may be hiding his case as he prosecutes it or that it wasn’t Prague but some other location. - I’m not saying it is true, but I am saying this rumor is circulating in the European intelligence community and has been since late 2016 and it’s coming from something.

 
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squistion said:
:mellow:

I hope this is kept classified. Among my favorite Twitter reactions.

Asha Rangappa‏ @AshaRangappa_ 19h19 hours ago

dear God please tell us what we have done to deserve this I promise I will repent for the rest of my life but for the love of all that is holy do not release a nude selfie of *anyone* involved in the Trump campaign or make me comment about it on TV thank you amen

https://twitter.com/AshaRangappa_/status/1078400854799970304
Click to expand...
Hope Hicks FTW

 
New Knowledge- the authors of that "sweeping" Senate report that concluded the IRA "created an expansive cross-platform media mirage targeting the Black community" to "create an immersive influence ecosystem" that everyone around here was citing credulously a couple weeks ago- "orchestrated an elaborate ‘false flag’ operation that planted the idea that the [Roy] Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet" - NYT

 
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