Carter Page Feels Like a Warning Shot
This is the kind of thing that doesn't leak, even in Washington. Except this one did, and that makes all the difference. From The Washington Post:
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.
Let us begin by stating that the FISA Court-a rubber-stamp secret court issuing secret warrants-gives me the willies, and it has ever since it was created in the late 1970s response to the Church committee's revelations of CIA depredations. (During the late Bush administration, I got something of a kick out of liberals who were on fire because the Bush folks ignored the FISA court.) That being said, unless you're living fulltime in Alex Jonestown, the fact that the FBI got this warrant, and then got it extended, means that there was something very hinky about Page's relationship with the blinis-and-bullets crowd in Moscow.
But more significant to me, anyway, is the fact that all of this leaked-the warrant and the specific individual against whom it was filed. This just doesn't happen. This can't be anything but a warning shot from the intelligence community. We know, and you know we know, so how about you watch your step for a while? Meanwhile, Page was busy performing some improv at Bad Historical Analogy Theater.
"This confirms all of my suspicions about unjustified, politically motivated government surveillance," Page said in an interview Tuesday. "I have nothing to hide." He compared surveillance of him to the eavesdropping that the FBI and Justice Department conducted against civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
Well, no, but thank you for playing.
The government's application for the surveillance order targeting Page included a lengthy declaration that laid out investigators' basis for believing that Page was an agent of the Russian government and knowingly engaged in clandestine intelligence activities on behalf of Moscow, officials said. 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.
There's an insane amount of detail in the story about what perked up the interest of the FBI concerning Page's contacts with various Russian operatives. This also is not a usual thing. This is the kind of material that gets released because whomever released it has a good reason to do so. (None of this is to minimize the work it takes for the Post's reporters to cultivate sources in the toughest place in the country to do so.) I'm starting to lose track of all the low-running wars that are going on within this administration, but all the conniving and backstabbing and intrigue is one of the most Russian things about it.
Any day now, we're going to be looking to see who's golfing at Mar-a-Lago with the same interest we once had as to who was going to the opera in Moscow.
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