FBI reportedly obtained FISA warrant to monitor ex-Trump adviser
The FBI obtained a court order last summer that granted them permission to monitor the communications of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.
The so-called FISA warrant was granted as part of an ongoing investigation into possible links between Russian officials and members of the Trump campaign, the paper reported.
In a statement to Fox News, Page said he was “excited the truth is coming out.”
“I have done nothing wrong. I have no concerns,” Page added. “I was an obvious target because no one has been more thoughtful and methodical in their criticism of the Clinton/Obama administration foreign policy.”
The Post reported that the government’s application for the FISA warrant cited contacts Page had with a Russian intelligence operative in 2013. According to court documents filed earlier this month in connection with a separate espionage case, the Russian tried to recruit Page as an intelligence source.
Page, who was working as an energy consultant at the time, acknowledged that he “shared basic immaterial information and publicly available research documents” with the operative, Victor Podobnyy. He described the information as “nothing more than a few samples from the far more detailed lectures” he delivered at New York University in 2013.
In an interview with Fox News last month, Page said he had been victimized by a “false narrative” surrounding his contacts with Russian officials.
“I did nothing that could even possibly be viewed as helping them in any way,” Page said at the time.
Page was hired by the Trump campaign as a foreign policy adviser in March 2016, but left the campaign that September because, as he put it, “these stories kept coming out based on the dodgy dossier.”
That’s a reference to the now-infamous “Trump Dossier” created by former British Intelligence operative Christopher Steele, working for a U.S. political research group called Fusion GPS on behalf of both Republicans and Democrats.
Fox News’ Catherine Herridge contributed to this report.
