Tag Archives: Carter Page

Carter Page: Agent 000, by Ann Coulter

Ann Coulter finds an immigration angle to most issues, and the House Intelligence Committee memo is no different. From Coulter at anncoulter.com:

If you’ve been watching MSNBC and, consequently, have no idea what was in the CONTROVERSIAL! DISPUTED! AMATEURISH! memo released by the House Intelligence Committee (the “Nunes memo”), here is a brief summary:

The Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee paid a Trump-hating British private eye, Christopher Steele, to produce a “dossier” on Trump, relying on Russian sources.

The Department of Justice used the unverified dossier to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant against Carter Page, an alleged “foreign policy adviser” to Donald Trump and the last frayed thread of the Russian collusion story. The FISA court was not told who had paid Steele to create the “salacious and unverified” dossier — in the words of the showboating former FBI Director James Comey — much less about Steele’s personal hatred of Trump.

After 18 months of steely-eyed investigation, the only parts of the dossier that have been “confirmed” are bland factual statements — Moscow is a city in Russia — while the untrue parts are anything having to do with Trump or his associates.

As New York Times national security reporter Matthew Rosenberg explained to MSNBC’s easily excited Chris Hayes last March:

“Both journalists and others who had copies of it for a long time have not been able to report much of it out. We’ve heard that, you know, the FBI and the Intelligence Community believe about 30 percent of it may be accurate, but most of that 30 percent, if not all, has been non-Trump stuff.”

Four points:

1. The only reason the hapless Carter Page was mentioned by Trump as a “foreign policy adviser” during the campaign was that the media and “foreign policy community” (FPC) threatened to excommunicate any FPC types who went near Trump, the better to laugh at him for having no decent foreign policy advisers.

Danielle Pletka, with the “conservative” American Enterprise Institute, expressed the FPC’s disdain, telling the Times: “It’s always surprising when a member of our relatively tightly knit community is willing to sacrifice their reputation to stand with someone like Donald Trump.”

This is standard procedure for the left, akin to how they treat black Republicans. Step One: Viciously attack any black person who works for a Republican. Step Two: Mock the GOP for being all white.

Their slanders against Trump worked! No one from the FPC would associate with him, so in a moment of desperation, Trump read five names off a list, including Page’s, during an interview with The Washington Post.

To continue reading: Carter Page: Agent 000

The McCarthyism of Russia-gate, by Robert Parry

Many so-called civil libertarians check their principles at the door when the civil liberties violated are those of the politically disfavored. From Robert Parry at consortiumnews.com:

 Exclusive: Civil-liberties nightmares about the Surveillance State are coming true, but – since the victims are former Donald Trump advisers – many of the usual civil-liberties defenders are strikingly silent, reports Robert Parry.

Congressional demands for personal and business information from several of Donald Trump’s campaign advisers demonstrate how the Russia-gate investigation continues to spill over into a new breed of McCarthyism infringing on civil liberties, including freedom of speech and freedom of association.

The original thinking had been that congressional and other investigations would concentrate on specific concerns from alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election, such as whether a Trump intermediary somehow conveyed purloined Democratic emails to WikiLeaks for publication on the Internet.

WikiLeaks denies getting the leaked emails from Russians and the Trump campaign denies colluding with Russians, but President Obama’s intelligence chiefs claimed that Russian agents hacked the emails and then used intermediaries to get the material to WikiLeaks – although no real evidence of that has been presented publicly.

However, instead of zeroing in on that central question, the Senate investigation appears engaged in a fishing expedition looking at virtually every contact between Trump advisers and Russians, who may or may not have ties to the government. The demands are so broad that they could entrap the targets for perceived obstruction of an official investigation if some name or contact is left off, intentionally or by accident.

For instance, the Senate Intelligence Committee has demanded from ex-Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page, who has extensive business dealings and personal contacts in Russia, the names and details of pretty much anyone he contacted over an 18-month period who could be a Russian official or somehow connected to a Russian business.

In a letter dated April 28, the committee’s top Republican, Richard Burr of North Carolina, and top Democrat, Mark Warner of Virginia, gave Page until May 9 to provide: “A list of all meetings between you and any Russian official or representative of Russian business interests which took place between June 16, 2015, and January 20, 2017. For each meeting listed, please include the date, location, all individuals present, and complete copies of any notes taken by you or on your behalf.”

To continue reading: The McCarthyism of Russia-gate

Obama, Comey Relied On Discredited Dossier To Obtain FISA Warrant On Trump Campaign, by Tyler Durden

Still more evidence that the intelligence community’s so-called case for Russian-Trump collusion is tissue-thin. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

James Comey, the man who refused to bring charges against Hillary Clinton despite a mountain of concrete evidence that she, and several members of her staff, knowingly violated several federal laws, apparently used the largely discredited “Trump Dossier” to help secure a FISA warrant to secretly monitor Trump’s former campaign aide, Carter Page, according to CNN.

Among other things, the dossier alleged that Page met senior Russian officials as an emissary of the Trump campaign, and discussed quid-pro-quo deals relating to sanctions, business opportunities and Russia’s interference in the election. Page has denied meeting the officials named in the dossier and says he never cut any political deals with the Kremlin. Per CNN:

The FBI last year used a dossier of allegations of Russian ties to Donald Trump’s campaign as part of the justification to win approval to secretly monitor a Trump associate, according to US officials briefed on the investigation.

The dossier has also been cited by FBI Director James Comey in some of his briefings to members of Congress in recent weeks, as one of the sources of information the bureau has used to bolster its investigation, according to US officials briefed on the probe.

This includes approval from the secret court that oversees the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to monitor the communications of Carter Page, two of the officials said. Last year, Page was identified by the Trump campaign as an adviser on national security.

According to the Washington Post, the warrant to monitor Page was obtained in the summer of 2016 which indicates that the FBI was in possession of the now-infamous dossier well before President Obama supposedly received his first briefing on the material in December 2016.

To continue reading: Obama, Comey Relied On Discredited Dossier To Obtain FISA Warrant On Trump Campaign