If you have the time and patience to comb through 400 pages of legal documents, you can now learn about the FBI’s application for that controversial FISA warrant against Carter Page.
Page, a onetime associate of Donald Trump‘s Presidential campaign, was suspected of working clandestinely for the Russian government. FBI agents based their application partly on the so-called “Steele Dossier” — the same document alleging the existence of the “pee tape” — and other intelligence.
Responding to Freedom of Information Act lawsuits, the White House released a heavily redacted document Saturday evening.
Republicans have tried to discredit the information obtained through surveillance of Page, suggesting that since the Steele dossier was commissioned by a firm working for Hillary Clinton, it was politically motivated. They also say that FBI agents misled the judge who granted the warrant by not making clear the source of their suspicions. However, the warrant was also renewed four times by four different federal judges.
Page had denied collaborating with the Russian government. (USA Today, New York Times)
Fasho Thoughts:
- The Steele Dossier also alleges that Page received — and possibly passed along — the brokerage fee in a huge oil-company sale in Russia in 2016. Some media observers believe Trump got that money — and never declared it on his taxes.
- The fact that the warrant was renewed four times by four different judges shows that FBI agents were right to be suspicious of Page.
- Attacking the warrant application — instead of denying the information it bore — is a curious defense for a guy who says he did nothing wrong.
- Page was just a hanger-on in the Trump campaign, not someone who would’ve had any influence.
- There’s so much in the Steele Dossier that defies belief that it’s hard to imagine how any judge could’ve approved it.
Source: CS / CS
