Michael Cohen, special counsel to President-elect Trump, slammed CNN and BuzzFeed Wednesday night for covering an unverified dossier on Trump’s alleged ties to Russia. Cohen was named in the reports as having met with Kremlin representatives in Prague in 2016 to discuss possible political intelligence to use against Hillary Clinton. There’s just one problem with that claim, however: He’s never been there in his life.
"[The reports] affected my family, it affected my wife, my in-laws, my children, and that’s not OK, and I believe CNN and BuzzFeed and others owe them a serious apology,” he told Fox News’ Sean Hannity.
The only trip he took that summer was to Los Angeles with his son, he told the Washingtonian soon after the report was published.
He explained to Hannity that Trump called him to ask if the information was true, and that he even showed the president-elect his passport to prove it wasn’t.
"So he said, ‘Michael, I really need to know.’" Cohen said. "I said, ‘Mr. Trump, I have never been to Prague.’ He said to me, ‘OK.’ I said, ‘You want to see my passport?’ I live close to the office, and he said ‘You mind if I see it?’ I said ‘Of course not, you’re the president-elect. I’ll be there in about two minutes.’"
I have never been to Prague in my life. #fakenews pic.twitter.com/CMil9Rha3D
— Michael Cohen (@MichaelCohen212) January 11, 2017
“They claimed that they have photos of me with some Russian government people. I said, ‘Produce the photos’ … I’ve never been to Prague and I’ve never been to Russia," he added.