Trump Adviser Page: 'I Wasn't a Foreign
Agent'
April 12, 2017 6:45 PM William Gallo
4/12/2017
Trump Adviser Page: 'I Wasn't a
Foreign Agent'
http://www.voanews.com/a/trumpadviserpagedeniesbeingforeignagent/3807746.html
USA
Carter Page, an adviser to
then-presidential candidate Donald Trump whose
communications were reportedly
monitored under an FBI-obtained court
order, denied Wednesday that he'd
worked for the Russians.
"Of course, I wasn't a foreign
agent," he said in an interview with CNN.
Last
month, FBI Director James Comey acknowledged that his agency was
investigating
whether members of Trump's campaign had colluded with
Russia
to influence the 2016 presidential election.
U.S. intelligence officials
believe Moscow intervened to try to
sway the election in favor of Trump.
The FBI obtained a secret court
order last year to monitor the
communications of Page, whom the
Trump campaign had hired as a foreign
policy adviser in March 2016, The
Washington Post reported. Citing
unnamed law enforcement and other
U.S. officials, the Post said the FBI and
Justice Department were able to
secure a FISA warrant after convincing a
judge "there was probable cause
to believe Page was acting as an agent of a
foreign power, in this case
Russia."
Other
reported targets
Page
was one of several Trump associates reported to be a focus of that
investigation.
Others included former campaign chief Paul Manafort, former
national
security adviser Michael Flynn and longtime Trump confidante
Roger
Stone.
In the CNN interview, Page — who has
praised Russian President Vladimir
Putin and criticized U.S. sanctions
against Russia — refused to say who'd
brought him into the Trump campaign,
calling that issue irrelevant. But he
did emphasize that it was not
Manafort, whom he said he'd never met or
spoken with.
In recent months White House
officials have tried to downplay Page's role
with the campaign.
"This confirms all my
suspicions about unjustified, politically motivated
government surveillance," Page
said in a statement to the Post. He also
compared his situation to that of
civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., who
was monitored and harassed by the
FBI.
Page, a former investment banker,
has not been accused of a crime. But in
order to obtain the FISA warrant,
the Post said, law enforcement officials
submitted "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."
Contacts
detailed
Specifically, the application mentioned
contacts Page had with a "Russian
intelligence operative in New York
City in 2013," as well as other contacts
with "Russian operatives"
that had not been previously disclosed, the report
said. Reports last month suggested
that Page met with Russia's ambassador
to the U.S. on the sidelines of the
2016 Republican National Convention in
Cleveland.’
The original 90-day warrant has been
renewed "more than once" by the
FISA court, the Postreport said. It
added that Page was the "only American
to have had his communications
directly targeted with a FISA warrant in
2016 as part of the Russia
probe."’
Russia denies trying to influence
the 2016 election. Trump officials insist any
suggestion they colluded with Moscow
is false and politically motivated,
although the FBI investigation and a
separate congressional probe have
continued to draw headlines.
Asked
Wednesday during an interview on the Fox Business Channel whether
he
would consider asking Comey to step down,
Trump said: "I have
confidence
in him. We'll see what happens. You know, it's going to be
interesting.
But, you know, we have to just — look, I have so many people
that
want to come into this administration."
没有评论:
发表评论