(Credit: McClatchy)

Now that a redacted version of Robert Mueller’s report is out, McClatchy has added an editor’s note to its previous reporting about former Donald Trump fixer and lawyer Michael Cohen and whether he went to Prague.

McClatchy originally reported April 13, 2018 that Mueller’s investigation obtained “evidence” of Cohen having “secretly made a late-summer trip to Prague during the 2016 presidential campaign.” The report was based on “two sources familiar with the matter.” In December 2018, McClatchy reported that “four people with knowledge of the matter” said Cohen’s cell phone “briefly sent signals ricocheting off cell towers in the Prague area in late summer 2016.” That article also reported that “two people familiar with the incident” said “electronic eavesdropping by an Eastern European intelligence agency picked up a conversation among Russians, one of whom remarked that Cohen was in Prague.”

Jeanne Segal, a spokesperson for McClatchy, told iMediaEthics by e-mail that McClatchy stands by the stories. “Our first story reported that the Mueller investigation received evidence that Cohen entered the Czech Republic. The second story reported ‘that it was a pinging cell signal, picked up by a foreign intelligence agency, that geo-located Cohen’s phone to the Prague area,” she wrote.

The McClatchy editor’s note, added April 18, 2019 to both stories, reads:

EDITOR’S NOTE: Robert Mueller’s report to the attorney general states that Mr. Cohen was not in Prague. It is silent on whether the investigation received evidence that Mr. Cohen’s phone pinged in or near Prague, as McClatchy reported.

McClatchy’s story on the Mueller report quotes the report as saying “Cohen had never traveled to Prague” and quoted McClatchy East region editor Kristin Roberts as saying, “The Mueller report states Mr. Cohen was not in Prague. It makes no statement on whether the investigation ever had evidence that Mr. Cohen’s phone pinged in or near Prague, as McClatchy reported.”

Hat Tip: Washington Examiner