Fox News reported that for President Donald Trump campaign aide Carter Page filed a lawsuit against the Democrat National Committee (DNC), the law firm Perkins Coie, and those connected to the funding of the Christopher Steele dossier.
From Fox News:
The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Illinois’ Eastern Division Thursday morning, and was described by his attorneys as the “first of multiple actions in the wake of historic” Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuse.“This is a first step to ensure that the full extent of the FISA abuse that has occurred during the last few years is exposed and remedied,” attorney John Pierce said Thursday. “Defendants and those they worked with inside the federal government did not and will not succeed in making America a surveillance state.”He added: “This is only the first salvo. We will follow the evidence wherever it leads, no matter how high. … The rule of law will prevail.”—The suit alleges that the DNC, Perkins Coie and partners Marc Elias and Michael Sussman “used false information, misrepresentations and other misconduct to direct the power of the international intelligence apparatus and the media industry against” Page “to further their political agenda.”The dossier in question was filled with salacious claims about Trump and his associates and has been the subject of fierce controversy ever since its public emergence around the time of President Trump’s inauguration. The document was authored by ex-British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, commissioned by opposition research firm Fusion GPS, and funded by the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign through law firm Perkins Coie.
There’s more:
The suit goes on to allege the parties named “misrepresented Dr. Page’s connections to and interactions with certain foreign nationals in order to create the false impression that Dr. Page —a law-abiding American citizen who served his country honorably in the United States Navy and in the private sector—was in fact an agent of a foreign power, Russia.”The suit states: “Defendants leveraged these fabrications within the Federal Bureau of Investigation (‘FBI’) and the United States Department of Justice (‘DOJ’), leading these agencies to present false applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (‘FISC’).”The suit alleges Page was then “wrongfully and covertly surveilled” and “has seen his reputation ruined and his personal safety threatened.”
Page and Pierce chose “Illinois because they allege the relationship with the firm behind the dossier, Fusion GPS, was ‘orchestrated’ through law firm Perkins Coie’s Chicago office.” They also claimed that “the DNC ‘has a historical pattern’ of making Chicago its principal place of business.”
Page seeks “compensatory, special and punitive damages in appropriate amounts to be established at trial” in the lawsuit.
Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz wrote in his report in December “that the FBI made repeated errors and misrepresentations before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court as the FBI sought to monitor Page in 2016 and 2017.”
Horowitz also confirmed that the FBI used the dossier on its FISA applications.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) revealed last week two of the applications that lacked probable cause to monitor Page:
“In connection with an effort to counter the Trump campaign, Defendants undertook to develop opposition research regarding Trump and his campaign, including persons associated with that campaign,” the new lawsuit states. “As part of this effort, Defendants developed a dossier replete with falsehoods about numerous individuals associated with the Trump campaign—especially Dr. Page. Defendants then sought to tarnish the Trump campaign and its affiliates (including Dr. Page) by publicizing this false information.”
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