Report: FISA Warrant Obtained by FBI to Surveil Former Trump Adviser, Carter Page
What did Page know and when did he know it?
According to a report by the Washington Post, the FBI obtained a FISA warrant last summer to monitor former Trump adviser, Carter Page. WaPo’s report is based on information provided by anonymous sources not at liberty to discuss the investigation.
The FBI and DOJ believed Page may have been acting as a foreign agent.
So far, this is the closest public evidence that there may have been Trump camp/Russian collaboration, but even at that, obtaining a warrant is not indicative of collusion, simply a suspicion of.
From the WaPo:
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.
Page has not been accused of any crimes, and it is unclear whether the Justice Department might later seek charges against him or others in connection with Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election. The counterintelligence investigation into Russian efforts to influence U.S. elections began in July, officials have said. Most such investigations don’t result in criminal charges.
Page denies any wrongdoing:
“This confirms all of my suspicions about unjustified, politically motivated government surveillance,” Page said in an interview Tuesday. “I have nothing to hide.” He compared surveillance of him to the eavesdropping that the FBI and Justice Department conducted against civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
And as the WaPo explains it, the process for obtaining a FISA warrant is lengthy and requires a fair amount of evidentiary support:
Applications for FISA warrants, Comey said, are often thicker than his wrists, and that thickness represents all the work Justice Department attorneys and FBI agents have to do to convince a judge that such surveillance is appropriate in an investigation.
The government’s application for the surveillance order targeting Page included a lengthy declaration that laid out investigators’ basis for believing that Page was an agent of the Russian government and knowingly engaged in clandestine intelligence activities on behalf of Moscow, officials said.
Among other things, the application cited contacts that he had with a Russian intelligence operative in New York City in 2013, officials said. Those contacts had earlier surfaced in a federal espionage case brought by the Justice Department against the intelligence operative and two other Russian agents. In addition, the application said Page had other contacts with Russian operatives that have not been publicly disclosed, officials said.
There’s no public evidence Page did anything wrong, just the supposition that he might have. Anti-Trumpers can point to this tidbit as an “Aha! See! There was collusion with Russians!” While Pro-Trumpers can boast that Trump’s “wiretap” suspicions have once again been proved true.
Have you heard of Carter Page? If not, you’re not alone. Page didn’t have a major role in the campaign. From Newsweek:
Page, a former foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, was never more than a bit player. Last March, Trump name-dropped him as one of his advisers and then, as Page’s support for Russia was revealed in the following months, dropped him altogether.
Reporters who went foraging for information on him during the race for the White House found little. Within Trump’s team, no one seemed to know who hired him, or what he did for the campaign. Among U.S. businessmen who had worked in Russia, and the Russians they had worked with, few knew Page’s name. In a scathing Politico article about Page, an unnamed Western investor in Russian energy told the author: “I can poll any number of people involved in energy in Russia about Carter Page and they’ll say, ‘Carter who? You mean Jimmy Carter?’”
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Comments
As if short-term volunteers who never once met the the candidate are the main pipeline between the campaign and a foreign power.
Smell test…does not pass.
Just in case anyone isn’t aware, the LYING, CRIMINAL behavior went from the white house through most of the federal government, including justice dept. and fbi !!!
“So far, this is the closest public evidence that there may have been Trump camp/Russian collaboration, but even at that, obtaining a warrant is not indicative of collusion, simply a suspicion of.”
So your “closest evidence of collusion” is actually no evidence what so ever?
What really bothers me about the 24/7 Russia Russia Russia fake news reporting is that this fake news reporting could actually lead to Americans being killed by Russians who have had their anti-American hatred fuelled by all this fake news reporting.
Worse still, all this negative reporting COULD actually end up helping “the enemy” by hindering the Trump administration from protecting Americans from harm. Oh wait…that’s happening already!
I have no doubt that Russia tries to hack everything in sight. We do.
If Russia rigged the election, it must have been by putting out fake polls that showed Hillary leading in Pennsylvania.
The Russians would have wanted a corrupted fool like Hillary Clinton – not The Donald.
Clinton lost by an electoral college landslide.
The Russians, if they did try to interfere (and why not?), they failed miserably. Like that moron obama, they would have put their trust in the second lamest clown to ever run for high office.
If Page was small potatoes, why focus on him? What is known of his background? Could he have been a mole, intended to collude with the Russians, who could then be “investigated” and subsequently granted immunity for testimony against Trump or his staff? Such a non-entity, with no real direct channel to Trump or his higher-echelon staff seems an unlikely target for an investigation. And what could the Obama administration have had on him that could have formed the basis for the warrant from the FISA court? It would have been necessary for Page to have already been under some form of surveillance to acquire such evidence, unless someone was ratting him out – and if he was a mole, he could have supplied that info himself.
I know it may sound loopy, but I wouldn’t discount it, considering the Obama administration’s record of deceit.
So, does anyone remember when Comey sat in front of the Congress and stated that there was no FISA warrant applied for by the FBI? This seems to refute that statement. Perhaps he was at the dentist that day and missed it.
I have stated previously that I believe that a FISA warrant, or warrants, was applied for and obtained by the FBI. And, now it appears that this may well be true. What is intriguing is that the Director of the FBI, who knew that he was going to be asked about FICA warrants, would state that the FBI had not acquired one. If the FBI HAD acquired one, this would be no big deal and Comey could simply have refused to answer the question in a public forum, as the investigation was ongoing. But, he chose to deny that such a warrant existed. Comey is the weak link in this whole surveillance scandal. I would lean on him if it were my investigation.
It is interesting that “sources” would choose to leak this information to the WaPo, at this time. It is most likely to have been leaked to short circuit the charges of unlawful surveillance being leveled at the Obama administration. However, it simply strengthens the notion that such improper surveillance took place and was the source of the illegal leaks of information about the Trump camp.
“There’s no public evidence Page did anything wrong…”
You do’t say!!!
Does anyone with a rational bone in their body not think for an instant that had there been the slightest hint that Page might have possibly THOUGHT about doing something wrong in the non-public information that he would have been frog-marched in a parade from Los Angeles to DC during the week immediately prior to the election?
What I’ve been aching to see from any Democrat who’s been making claims about this is the answer to this question – suppose, just for the sake of argument, that Carter Page did everything you suspect he did – let’s suppose he agreed to work for the Russians, let’s suppose he took money from them, let’s suppose he had bad intent…
Even if we suppose all that, WHAT statutory crime would Carter Page have committed? Seriously? We are not at war with Russia, it is not a crime to take money from them. (it probably shows poor judgment, but that’s not a crime) Carter Page had no government job, he had no ability to pass anything classified since he never could have gotten any of it – and he had already quit/been fired from the Trump campaign before the fall contretemps happened. No one alleges that HE hacked anybody, no one alleges that HE released the docs. (in fact we all know that Julian Assange did that, and he’s still hiding out in that embassy)
So what actual crime is Carter Page accused of, even if we make the assumption that he did EVERYTHING they say???
At least I know why nobody ever filed any charges.
They say he gave the Russians an energy report, that he said he gave to his students. They don’t say if it was classified. I don’t see how it could be, Page didn’t work for any agency producing classified reports. Also, if it was classified Page would have been arrested. Comey is either dirty or totally incompetent. He accepts a DNC report about the alleged hacking. Never requests a Grand Jury to look into Hillary’s server. Lies under oath. He knew about the surveillance on Trump. He can’t find or isn’t looking for leakers.
The “energy report” has been much discussed and analyzed elsewhere – Carter Page wrote it himself, and it was half op/ed, half Resume. He was using it to promote himself during a period of unemployment and he became notorious for pushing it off on everyone he met like it was some religious tract.
The one transcript of the Russian agents discussing Carter Page in an intercepted conversation has a long part where both Russians laugh about he was too dumb to even realize they were working for the Russian govm’t. And while on the one hand it’s comical, it also means that all of the hard evidence which we have SPECIFICALLY exonerates him from the accusations that have been made. It’s not often when the defendant doesn’t need anything more than the prosecution’s evidence to prove his innocence. (it means the prosecutors are idiots)
Also Clapper knew about Page and said there was no proof of collusion. To think Page is some super spy is absurd. He was a low level member of the campaign for a few months never met with Trump and when pro Russian comments came out Trump got rid of him. It always seems to be people Trump got rid of that the media touts as proof of collusion. Yet the Podesta’s were linked up to their eyeballs to the Russians, but that’s no problem.
There is some ridiculously small number of FISA requests that are denied; something less than 10 during the entire life of the FISA court.
That a warrant was issued means only that a warrant was asked for, period.
Just the facts. Only the facts.
This fact is leaked by Obama acolytes. Why? This leak is to serve Obama’s interest.
Figure out how this benefits Obama.
What are the odds of the FBI obtaining a FISA warrant if Carter Page was dealing with UK actors rather than Russians?
Am I paranoid or am I the only one seeing the reality of this situation? Does it not seem obvious that Obie and the Dems created this entire “Russians are coming” story out of whole cloth with the express reason of giving them the cover they needed to sic the government eavesdropping agencies upon Trump and company to get inside information? Instead of asking either “Did Obama surveil Trump?” or “Who did Obama have Trump surveilled?” the real question that begs to be answered is “Who among those that were not on Team Obama did Obama not surveil?”
Cleetus asked
“Who among those that were not on Team Obama did Obama not surveil?”
Better to ask “Who among those that were in the 2016 election did Obama not surveil?”
Dollars to donuts , Obama surveilled the Republican candidates , the Bern and the Hagobeast , he is a nasty man and no doubt all were beneath him and worthy of surveillance .
I would not have made the comparison of snooping on ML King, as he was a communist and J. Edgar Hoover knew it for a fact.
And we know now the FISA warrant found absolutely NOTHING. We know this because if anything had been found it long ago would have appeared in the New York Times and Washington Post.
The leak of the fact of a FISA warrant is itself a felony according to some reports I’ve seen.
This is just a desperate attempt by the media/democrat axis to revive the Trump/Russia story that has been dying of loneliness lately.
Also after watching Carter Page several times on TV he appears far too dumb to have been able to ever put any conspiracy of any kind together. He was if anything a failed patsy for the media/democrat axis.
But then again this come from Wapo and even mentioning the existence of a FISA is illegal, I think it is made up BS that former Obama Officials are using just keeping the Russian BS going.
I have never seen ANY “official” acknowledgements of the FISA warrants .
They know that it is going down the drain and the investigation is morphing into an investigation of possible illegal surveillance . I suspect deflection . I believe we are going to find 3?4 of the whole Russian Hoax is made up .