PHILADELPHIA — Carter Page, the American financial consultant who was tangentially and briefly associated with Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, on Monday sent a request to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein seeking the release of information used to reportedly obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) warrant to monitor his personal communications.
Page sent the inquiry in an email to Rosenstein shared exclusively with Breitbart News.
The FISA information release request was sent ahead of Tuesday’s scheduled Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing with Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Page wrote:
Whereas this will be an open hearing (with Sessions), I would kindly request the immediate prior release of my illegitimate 2016 FISA warrants which were allegedly concocted by the FBI on Mr. Comey’s watch.
…I know that your team at the DoJ is currently working on my related request for these documents. However, the highly time-sensitive nature of tomorrow’s SSCI hearing would offer essential context for these discussions before Congress.
…I think the “really important documents” you could release would show a great deal about the nature of not just Comey and his continued lies, but the exceptionally dishonest nature of the Clinton campaign and Obama Administration on whose behalf he was acting. Thank you in advance for your consideration.
On April 11, the Washington Post cited “law enforcement and other U.S. officials” stating that, as part of its investigation into alleged Russian collusion, the FBI obtained a secret FISA court order last summer to monitor Page’s communications.
The Post acknowledged it was reporting on leaked information, highlighting that the officials “spoke about the court order on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details of a counterintelligence probe.”
The Post further reported on the court order:
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.
The newspaper allowed that Page had not been accused of any crimes. It reported that the FISA court renewed the 90-day warrant on Page more than once, according to the officials.
The U.S. government has not responded to a Freedom of Information Act request from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) seeking information on why Page was surveilled.
In April, CNN reported that the controversial 35-page dossier on Trump compiled by a former British intelligence officer served as part of the FBI’s justification for seeking the FISA court’s approval to clandestinely monitor Page.
In his testimony last month before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on FBI oversight, then-FBI Director James B. Comey repeatedly refused to answer questions about his agency’s ties to the dossier, including whether it was used in the Russia probe.
In subsequent testimony last week, Comey admitted that he pushed back against a request from Trump to possibly investigate the origins of “salacious material” that the agency possessed in the course of its investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign. The “salacious material” is clearly a reference to claims made inside the controversial dossier.
The partially discredited dossier contains wild and unproven claims that the Russians had information on Trump and sordid sexual acts, including the mocked claim that Trump hired prostitutes and had them urinate on a hotel room bed.
The document was authored by former intelligence agent Christopher Steele, who was reportedly paid by Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans to investigate Trump.
In April, Steele conceded in court documents that part of his work still needed to be verified.
The Steele document, which Page refers to as the “Dodgy Dossier,” makes the unsubstantiated claim that Page met with Russian officials as an envoy for the Trump campaign to discuss policy issues and topics related to alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Page has steadfastly denied meeting any of the officials mentioned in Steele’s dossier and he says he never served as an envoy for the Trump campaign.
Page and campaign
Page’s role in Trump’s presidential campaign has long been seemingly exaggerated in the news media.
In an interview with the Post’s editorial board last March, Trump briefly mentioned Page as a member of his foreign policy advisory team. Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks clarified that Page’s role was “informal.”
Page has been cited in various news media reports as an “ex-foreign policy adviser” to Trump’s campaign and a “Trump associate.” An article in the New Yorker recently claimed he was a member of Trump’s “inner circle.”
In the letter to the House Intelligence Committee last month, Page states that he never met Trump and that he was an “informal, unpaid campaign volunteer” and a “very junior member of the Trump movement who didn’t actually have any direct one-on-one discussions or meetings with our candidate.”
Page charges that the news media has been inflating his relationship with Trump’s presidential campaign in an effort to tarnish the U.S. president.
Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.
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