The House GOP really needs to decide whether or not they're defending Carter Page

[struggle4progress]

... candidate Trump .. read Page's name from a list of national security advisory council members while meeting with The <Washington> Post's editorial board in March <2016> ...

Two years before joining the Trump campaign as a foreign policy adviser .. Carter Page was targeted for recruitment as an intelligence source by Russian spies promising favors for business opportunities in Russia, according to a sealed FBI complaint ...

... investment banking wasn’t Page’s only contact with Russia: A Russian spy tried to recruit him as an asset in 2013 ... The man and two other operatives later decided that while "enthusiastic," Page was an "idiot" and not worth their time. That spring, Page had his first brush with FBI counterintelligence agents, who interviewed him about his contacts. The Russians were charged in a criminal case in 2015 ...

Ever since F.B.I. investigators discovered in 2013 that a Russian spy was trying to recruit .. Carter Page, the bureau maintained an occasional interest in Mr. Page. So when he became a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign <in 2016> and gave a Russia-friendly speech at a prestigious Moscow institute, it .. caught the bureau’s attention ...

... incoming White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters, "Carter Page is an individual whom the president-elect does not know." According to Trump, that wasn’t true: last year, during an interview with the Washington Post, Trump singled out Page as one of only a handful of people who were advising him on matters of foreign policy ...

... Carter Page .. said .. he "was not a substantial part of the campaign" ...

... Trump came to the defense of Carter Page .. in two tweets ... "Witch Hunt!" Trump .. tweeted ...

A House committee memo .. has accused the FBI and Justice Department of misleading a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge so they could extend an eavesdropping warrant against a Trump presidential campaign adviser. The memo accuses the agencies of basing the warrant request to surveil Carter Page on a disputed dossier ... partly financed by the Democratic National Committee ...

... The four-page document was written by the staff of Republican House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes – who previously served on the presidential transition team of Donald Trump, and whose alleged misconduct later forced his recusal from the Trump/Russia investigation ...

.... The Nunes memo begins with a FISA application dated October 21, 2016 ... As an initial matter, coming less than 20 days before the election, it seems a .. poor way of trying to influence the outcome of the election. A FISA application just a few days before November 9 would not .. have produced any evidence until well after the election — making Nunes' implicit charge of a corrupted investigation chronologically implausible. In addition, the focus on this date has to deal with the uncomfortable fact that the surveillance of Page it authorized started roughly a month after Page officially left the Trump campaign — so, again, it is a poor way of effectuating a bias against Trump to collect evidence relating to the actions of a former campaign volunteer. But .. the 2016 date .. ignores another, earlier date. We know from public reports that the FBI opened its inquiry into Page’s Russian connections as early as 2013, at which time the bureau already had probable cause to think Russian intelligence operatives might be trying to recruit him ...


https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2018/02/02/nunes-memo-centers-carter-page-how-does-fit-into-russia-inquiry/TUNprTJMsWMCMUMWr7HPdJ/story.html

[dewsgirl]

1. Thank you, I haven't seen this.