Tag: Carter Page

Posted on

Newly Discovered Letter Shows Trump Adviser Carter Page Claimed He Served As An Advisor To The Kremlin In 2013

Former Trump Adviser Carter Page

A 2013 letter obtained by TIME shows that former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page boasted that he had served as an adviser to the Kremlin.

This is the same Carter Page who has had trouble keeping his story straight regarding Russian contacts since coming into the spotlight of the ongoing probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The letter, dated Aug. 25, 2013, was sent by Page to an academic press during a dispute over edits to an unpublished manuscript he had submitted for publication, according to an editor who worked with Page.

“Over the past half year, I have had the privilege to serve as an informal advisor to the staff of the Kremlin in preparation for their Presidency of the G-20 Summit next month, where energy issues will be a prominent point on the agenda,” the letter reads.

Page is at the center of a controversial memo from Republican Congressman Devin Nunes, released this week. The Nunes memo claims that in Oct. 2016 the FBI improperly received court permission to spy on Page, whom Trump had named as an adviser to his campaign in March 2016. The Nunes memo says the FBI based its request for eavesdropping permission on information provided by former British spy Christopher Steele while Steele was working for Democrats.

House Democrats, the FBI and the Justice Department have all raised questions about what they say are omissions and misleading analysis in the Nunes memo. They argue the FBI presented multiple pieces of evidence, beyond the Steele dossier, in their request for a warrant against Page from the secretive FISA court. But President Donald Trump argued after declassifying the memo that it showed that “a lot of people should be ashamed of themselves.”

Posted on

Corey Lewandoski: My Memory Has Been ‘Refreshed’ Regarding Russia Emails From Carter Page

Former Donald Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who months ago claimed he’d never met campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page, now says his memory has been “refreshed” about knowing Page.

Via Politico:

Page, who testified last week before the House Oversight Committee as a part of their ongoing probe into Russian election meddling in 2016, told congressional investigators in testimony revealed Monday that he had asked he former Trump campaign chief and Hope Hicks, now the White House communications director, about his trip to Moscow in 2016 in which he met with Russian officials and discussed the presidential campaign.

During an appearance on Fox News Tuesday, Lewandowski maintained that he scarcely knew Page, whom he described as a “low-level volunteer” in the Trump campaign.

“To the best of my recollection, I don’t know Carter Page. To the best of my knowledge, Carter Page … had no formal role in the campaign,” Lewandowski said. The former Trump campaign manager had similarly told Fox News in March that he “never met Carter Page.”

Lewandowski, who’d previously rebuffed questions about whether he knew of Page’s planned Moscow trip, acknowledged after being challenged that he had been aware and had communicated with Page about the trip.

“My memory has been refreshed,” Lewandowski said, while noting that the exchange came just prior to him exiting the campaign and so “there were many other things on my mind.”

Posted on

FBI Obtained FISA Warrant To Monitor Trump Advisor Carter Page’s Communications With Russia

Carter Page

From The Washington Post:

The FBI obtained a secret court order last summer to monitor the communications of an adviser to presidential candidate Donald Trump, part of an investigation into possible links between Russia and the campaign, law enforcement and other U.S. officials said.

The FBI and the Justice Department obtained the warrant targeting Carter Page’s communications after convincing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge that there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power, in this case Russia, according to the officials.

This is the clearest evidence so far that the FBI had reason to believe during the 2016 presidential campaign that a Trump campaign adviser was in touch with Russian agents. Such contacts are now at the center of an investigation into whether the campaign coordinated with the Russian government to swing the election in Trump’s favor.

During the Republican primary season last year, Trump identified Page as a foreign policy adviser to his campaign.

It’s worth noting that a FISA warrant is not a simple thing to obtain. FBI Director James Comes testified that application for FISA warrants are thicker than his wrists, referencing the amount of work that goes into compiling evidence for the warrant.

Much more at the link – I recommend a full read.

Posted on

House Intel Chairman: I’ve Never Heard Of Trump Associates Roger Stone Or Carter Page

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes told reporters today he had never heard of Trump associates Roger Stone or Carter Page.

Rather stunning that the man looking into the allegations of Trump collusion with Russian interference could state with a straight face he had never heard of these characters who have been in the news so much in the past months.