WND

LANNY DAVIS BLOWS UP KEY 'DOSSIER' CLAIM

Document charged client Cohen was central to 'Trump-Russia collusion'

Longtime Clinton attorney Lanny Davis, now representing former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, said Cohen has never been to Prague, as claimed in the “dossier” of unverified political dirt on Trump funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

“Thirteen references to Mr. Cohen are false in the dossier, but he has never been to Prague in his life,” Davis said Wednesday in an interview on Bloomberg TV noted by the Daily Caller.

Significantly, the 35-page dossier – the basis for the Obama administration obtaining a warrant to spy on the Trump campaign – claimed Cohen was a central figure in a “clandestine” conspiracy of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government.

Cohen, who pleaded guilty Tuesday to tax evasion, bank fraud and campaign finance violations, has turned against his former client, claiming Trump directed him to pay off two women who say they had affairs with the billionaire realtor in 2006.

The dossier, compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele from anonymous Russian sources, states Cohen and three associates visited Prague to meet with Kremlin officials.

The objective of the visit, Steele wrote, was to pay hackers to obtain dirt on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party presidential nominee in 2016.

“The agenda comprised questions on how deniable cash payments were to be made to hackers who had worked in Europe under Kremlin direction against the CLINTON campaign and various contingencies for covering up these operations and Moscow’s secret liaison with the TRUMP team more generally,” the dossier stated.

Cohen also claimed in a June 28 tweet the dossier “misreports 15 allegations about me.”

“I had nothing to do with Russian collusion or meddling!” he declared.

In the interview with Bloomberg on Wednesday, Davis commented further regarding the dossier’s claim that Cohen visited Prague.

“By the way, the number of time that falsehood has been repeated – I’m not accusing you – is the classic example that if you mention something a million times, and you get Google hits and they’re all false, it’s zero-zero,” he said.

In interviews this week, Davis has stirred Washington with claims that Cohen has information of interest to special counsel Robert Mueller’s collusion probe. 

He has suggested President Trump had prior knowledge of the hacking of Democratic National Committee computers, allegedly by Russian intelligence officers.

“I believe that Mr. Cohen would be able to provide information useful to the special counsel,” he said in an interview with CNN. “I won’t call it a smoking gun information, someone else will have to judge that. I believe that he does relevant information.”

Davis also called Cohen’s payment of the two women a “criminal act.” But legal experts such as Alan Dershowitz argue campaign-finance law requires that intent be proved, and reasons for making the payments apart from the election can be cited.

Read more at https://www.wnd.com/2018/08/lanny-davis-blows-up-key-dossier-claim/#7YX2OBs4gzWhLs7G.99