Heavily redacted Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court materials used to justify wiretapping former Trump campaign foreign policy advisor Carter Page were released yesterday in response to a Freedom of Information request by news organizations. The takeaway is that U.S. intelligence agencies had ample reason, well beyond the Steele dossier and dating back to 2013, to consider Page to be "collaborating and conspiring with the Russian government." From The New York Times:
On Saturday evening, those materials — an October 2016 application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to wiretap Mr. Page, along with several renewal applications — were released to The New York Times and other news organizations that had filed Freedom of Information Act lawsuits to obtain them. Mr. Trump had declassified their existence earlier this year.
“This application targets Carter Page,” the document said. “The F.B.I. believes Page has been the subject of targeted recruitment by the Russian government.” A line was then redacted, and then it picked up with “undermine and influence the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election in violation of U.S. criminal law. Mr. Page is a former foreign policy adviser to a candidate for U.S. president.” [snip]
Visible portions showed that the F.B.I. in stark terms had told the intelligence court that Mr. Page “has established relationships with Russian government officials, including Russian intelligence officers”; that the bureau believed “the Russian government’s efforts are being coordinated with Page and perhaps other individuals associated with” Mr. Trump’s campaign; and that Mr. Page “has been collaborating and conspiring with the Russian government.”Efforts by Putin puppet and useless idiot Donald "Rump" Trump and Republican co- conspirators like smarmy Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Kremlin) to smear the F.B.I. and other agencies as having made false, politically motivated claims in the Page FISA application are seriously undercut by the plain language of the application itself -- though they will continue in their desperate lies and distractions. An un- redacted version would undoubtedly shed more light and make the collaborators' spin even less credible, but its would also tip off the Russians and dishonorable Russo- weasels like Nunes to what the intelligence community really has on their (and Moscow's) man in the White (Supremacist) House and others in his rotted- out circle. They'll leave that for the indictments -- which can't come soon enough.
