Signal places ex-Trump lawyer near Prague

This was 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.

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 mobile 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.

Cohen has been cooperating with Mueller's investigation since he pleaded guilty on August 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.

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.

Australian Associated Press