Posted on 04/11/2017 4:44:03 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Careful, you’re falling for the leftist narrative which tries to pin blame on Trump for smaller than tiny, less than miniscule or nonexistent events.
Here’s some info stylin19a found
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3543285/posts?page=29#29
—Briefly— served as foreign policy advisor.
Thanks for this info, LS !
New 501(c) advocacy group formed by Ellen Nakashima, Devlin Barrett and Adam Entous called the Putiniacs.......
So what did they find on the guy? And why were they tapping other Trump’s staff members, Trump and his family’s communications? Did they have permission to monitor Flynn’s communications?
... Podobnyy tried to recruit Carter Page, an energy consultant working in New York at the time, as an intelligence source. Page is referred to in the filing as “Male-1.”
They tried to recruit page and ended up getting arrested. Seems to me Page is a Patriot!
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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.
An application for electronic surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act need not show evidence of a crime. But the information obtained through the intercepts can be used to open a criminal investigation and may be used in a prosecution.
The application also showed that the FBI and the Justice Department’s national security division have been seeking since July to determine how broad a network of accomplices Russia enlisted in attempting to influence the 2016 presidential election, the officials said.
Since the 90-day warrant was first issued, it has been renewed more than once by the FISA court, the officials said.
In February, Page told “PBS NewsHour” that he was a “junior member of the [Trump] campaign’s foreign policy advisory group.”
A former Trump campaign adviser said Page submitted policy memos to the campaign and several times asked to be given a meeting with Trump, though his request was never granted. “He was one of the more active ones, in terms of being in touch,” the adviser said.
The campaign adviser said Page participated in three dinners held for the campaign’s volunteer foreign policy advisers in the spring and summer of 2016, coming from New York to Washington to meet with the group. Although Trump did not attend, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), a top Trump confidant who became his attorney general, attended one meeting of the group with Page in late summer, the campaign adviser said.
Page’s role as an adviser to the Trump campaign drew alarm last year from more-established foreign policy experts in part because of Page’s effusive praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his criticism of U.S. sanctions over Moscow’s military intervention in Ukraine.
In July, Page traveled to Moscow, where he delivered a speech harshly critical of the United States’ policy toward Russia.
While there, Page allegedly met with Igor Sechin, a Putin confidant and chief executive of the energy company Rosneft, according to a dossier compiled by a former British intelligence officer and cited at a congressional hearing by Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. Officials said some of the information in the dossier has been verified by U.S. intelligence agencies, and some of it hasn’t, while other parts are unlikely to ever be proved or disproved.
On Tuesday, Page dismissed what he called “the dodgy dossier” of false allegations.
Page has denied such a meeting occurred, saying he has never met Sechin in his life and that he wants to testify before Congress to clear his name. A spokesman for Rosneft told Politico in September that the notion that Page met with Sechin was “absurd.” Page said in September that he briefly met Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich during that trip.
Comey has declined to discuss the details of the Russia probe, but in an appearance last month, he cited the process for getting FISA warrants as proof that the government’s surveillance powers are very carefully used, with significant oversight.
“It is a pain in the neck to get permission to conduct electronic surveillance in the United States. And that’s good,’’ he told an audience at the University of Texas in Austin.
Officials have said the FBI and the Justice Department were particularly reluctant to seek FISA warrants of campaign figures during the 2016 presidential race because of concerns that agents would inadvertently eavesdrop on political talk. To obtain a FISA warrant, prosecutors must show that a significant purpose of the warrant is to obtain foreign intelligence information.
Page is the only American to have had his communications directly targeted with a FISA warrant in 2016 as part of the Russia probe, officials said.
The FBI routinely obtains FISA warrants to monitor the communications of foreign diplomats in the United States, including the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak. The conversations between Kislyak and Michael Flynn, who became Trump’s first national security adviser, were recorded in December. In February, The Washington Post reported that Flynn misled Vice President-elect Mike Pence and others about his discussions with Kislyak, prompting Trump’s decision to fire him.
In March, Trump made unsubstantiated claims about U.S. surveillance of Trump Tower in New York. Later that month, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a Trump transition official, charged that details about people “associated with the incoming administration, details with little apparent foreign intelligence value” were “widely disseminated” in intelligence community reporting. He said none of the surveillance was related to Russia. The FISA order on Page is unrelated to either charge.
Last month, the former director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that U.S. law enforcement agencies did not have any FISA orders to monitor the communications of Trump, either as a candidate or as a president-elect, or his campaign. But Clapper did not address whether there were any FISA warrants targeting Trump associates.
Three years before Page became an adviser to the Trump campaign, he came to the attention of FBI counterintelligence agents, who learned that Russian spy suspects had sought to use Page as a source for information.
In that case, one of the Russian suspects, Victor Pobodnyy — who was posing as a diplomat and was later charged by federal prosecutors with acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government — was captured on tape in 2013 discussing an effort to get information and documents from Page. That discussion was detailed in a federal complaint filed against another Kremlin agent. The court documents in that spy case only identify Page as “Male 1.’’ Officials familiar with the case said that “Male 1’’ is Page.
In one secretly recorded conversation, detailed in the complaint, Pobodnyy said Page “wrote that he is sorry, he went to Moscow and forgot to check his inbox, but he wants to meet when he gets back. I think he is an idiot and forgot who I am. Plus he writes to me in Russian [to] practice the language. He flies to Moscow more often than I do. He got hooked on Gazprom thinking that if they have a project, he could rise up. Maybe he can. I don’t know, but it’s obvious that he wants to earn lots of money.’’
The same court document says that in June 2013, Page told FBI agents that he met Pobodnyy at an energy symposium in New York, where they exchanged contact information. In subsequent meetings, Page shared with the Russian his outlook on the state of the energy industry, as well as documents about the energy business, according to the court papers.
In the secret tape, Pobodnyy said he liked the man’s “enthusiasm” but planned to use him to get information and give him little in return. “You promise a favor for a favor. You get the documents from him and tell him to go f--- himself,’’ Pobodnyy said on the tape, according to court papers.
Page has said the information he provided to the Russians in 2013 was innocuous, describing it as “basic immaterial information and publicly available research documents.” He said he had assisted the prosecutors in their case against Evgeny Buryakov, who was convicted of espionage.
“Seems to me Page is a Patriot!”
Exactly... he worked with the FBI to sting them. This is a lame attempt to jumpstart the Trump/Russia narrative. This is it folks...this is ALL they have and it’s a non starter as far as illegal. He did nothing wrong.
There has been quite a few articles which I have linked to here that talk about the fact that the higher ups in the Dem circles are afraid of their looney base being completely disappointed because they have not come up with a way to impeach Trump. It really is a problem for them.They are already telling them not to get their hopes up because the “investigations” have turned up nothing...of course the Dem leaders knew that, but they now face an angry crowd that wants blood!!
This is the Post and Hill trying to help out Pelosi and Schumer by keeping this alive...trying to keep the crowd calling for them to hang satisfied for another week. They made their bed and now ther’e afraid to sleep in it.
Just think..Carter Page was the first one they went after along with Flynn...that’s along time ago. Now they are recycling old news. Their base wants blood and they want it now.
This is a steaming load. He met a guy 4 yrs ago that he helped prosecute later. Boy that surely justified a warrant as thick as a wrist.
When will we learn of warrants on Clinton’s boy who received millions for something?
Trump should announce that he is bringing Flynn back as an advisor, even if he doesn’t really “advise” him. The Dems and the MSM will blow a gasket ... it will be good for another 4 weeks!!!
I would love it!!!
So what did they find on the guy? And why were they tapping other Trump’s other staff members, Trump and his family’s communications? Did they have permission to monitor Flynn’s communications?
I thought so, too. He’d never lie to Congress. They compare him to Honest Abe!
Exactly.
“The FBI obtained a warrant...”
“This is the clearest evidence so far that the FBI had reason to believe ...”
The FBI obtaining a warrant is their clearest evidence, how circular is that?
“FISA cannot be used to surveil Americans.” Good point, Jacquerie
Now to change the subject again could be a false flag Syrian gas event. Some of Obama’s beautiful and so very smart people might end up in jail. So it’s time for war...
Or perhaps, Carter Page was a plant by the DEMs. Have him meet with a Russian. Get him involved in the Trump campaign. Get a FISA warrant. Then use his calls to monitor everyone else in the campaign.
You mean ANOTHER gas attack? ?? just happened?
No we have had only one gas attack in Syria. Sorry I was not clear enough for you.
This was in 2013 when Page was doing business with Russia. One of the business contacts he had turned out to be a Russian agent. They make it sound like he knew the guy was an agent and was dealing with him on that basis. Note to Washington Post. ANY western businessman doing business with Russia is going to come in contact with a Russian agent. Russia inserts them ALL THE TIME into business deals.
The FBI interviewed Page as part of an investigation stemming from the indictment of three Russian men identified as agents of the Russian foreign intelligence agency, the SVR. One of them, Evgeny Buryakov, was operating undercover as an executive in the New York office of a Russian development bank.
In the FBI court filings, spy recruiters were overheard speaking with Buryakov about "the attempted use of Male-1 as an intelligence source for Russia," the court record says. The recruiter says he "promised Male-1 a lot" and told him he would use his "connections in Russia" to "push contracts" his way. "For now, his enthusiasm works for me," the recruiter says of Page.
Page was never accused during the Buryakov case of having been successfully recruited or of spying. FBI agents say in the court record that they interviewed "Male-1" in June 2013. During the interview, Page described how he and the man identified as a Russian recruiter, Victor Podobnyy, met periodically and exchanged emails about the energy industry, but nothing in the court document suggests that Page shared any sensitive information with Podobnyy. Rather, it appears they spoke in much the way business executives seeking opportunities do — with Page touting his work ties to the Russian energy firm Gazprom. The Russians were heard laughing, saying Page had no idea they were government agents.
thanks for answering.. I’ve become a little ‘jumpy’....
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