I'M JUST LOOKING FOR CLUES AT THE SCENE OF THE CRIME

I’m not going to take the 5th.  I’ve been to Prague.  My wife and I were there for a few days in 2015 and we had a great time.  We’d like to go back someday.  There were pubs named after John Lennon and James Dean.  Medieval Prague, including the 14th century Charles Bridge connecting it to the modern city, is better than Disneyland. 

I took the photo of the brass plaque from the Charles Bridge on that trip.  It’s an image of St. John the Confessor, who was wrapped in chains and tossed off the bridge in 1393 at the behest of King Wenceslaus IV.  That Wenceslaus was not the Good King in the Christmas carol, who lived 400 years earlier.  Bad King Wenceslaus had a suspicious mind, and he was pissed at John because John refused to snitch on Queen Sofia’s confessional secrets.  The plaque is shiny because rubbing it is said to bring good luck. 

I do solemnly swear that, while I was in Prague, I did not meet with any Russian spies.  Not even one.  And I’d be happy to tell to Robert Mueller, under oath. 

You know who really doesn’t want to testify to Robert Mueller under oath that he’s never met with Russian spies in Prague?  Donald Trump’s fixer, Michael Cohen, that’s who. 

Former British spy Christopher Steele asserted that Cohen visited Prague in August, 2016, to work with Russian agents to help keep the Trump-Russia connections on the downlow.  Cohen denied it, and whipped out his passport to demonstrate the absence of a Czech Republic entry stamp.  That made   Cohen’s assertion that he’s never been to Prague is central Donald Trump’s much larger claim that the whole Steele Dossier, pee tape and all, is fake. 

But now Cohen’s claim is being challenged.  The absence of a Czech passport stamp doesn’t prove anything, one way or the other.  There’s this thing called the Schengen Agreement, in which 26 European countries have eliminated passport checks at their mutual borders.  My wife and I crossed borders between the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, and Hungary without showing a passport. 

Now the McClatchy news organization has cited two sources (anonymous, of course; link below) that say Robert Mueller has evidence that Cohen did, in fact, visit Prague.

But there’s a caveat.  Usually when this sort of news breaks, other press outlets like the New York Times and the Washington Post quickly find sources of their own to confirm the story.  This time?  Crickets.

So who knows?  Maybe McClatchy is wrong.  Or maybe – I’m kind of leaning this way – the city of Prague is a red herring, and Cohen met with Russian spies somewhere else.  The truth is out there, and I’ll bet Robert Mueller finds it. 

In the meantime, if you have a chance to visit Prague, go for it.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article208870264.html