{"id":1463410,"date":"2022-05-04T08:44:55","date_gmt":"2022-05-04T12:44:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1463410"},"modified":"2022-05-04T08:45:18","modified_gmt":"2022-05-04T12:45:18","slug":"fbi-pursued-bulls-dossier-rumor-to-spy-on-former-trump-campaign-adviser-carter-page","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/fbi-pursued-bulls-dossier-rumor-to-spy-on-former-trump-campaign-adviser-carter-page\/","title":{"rendered":"FBI Pursued \u201cBulls\u2014\u201d Dossier Rumor to Spy on Former Trump Campaign Adviser Carter Page"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffbi-pursued-bulls-dossier-rumor-to-spy-on-former-trump-campaign-adviser-carter-page%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1463410&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div class=\"story-stream-hover-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"story-stream-hover\">\n<p>X<\/p>\n<div class=\"title-wrapper\">\n<p>Story Stream<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"text-wrapper\">\n<p>recent articles<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<h6><em>The FBI treated as suspicious Carter Page&#8217;s 2016 trip to Moscow involving his speech at the New Economic School, above, where President Obama also once spoke (photo below). But that tip about Page was dismissed by the Washington Post&#8217;s sources as &#8220;bullshit.&#8221; Later the paper wasn&#8217;t so skeptical.<\/em><\/h6>\n<h2>By <a href=\"https:\/\/www.realclearinvestigations.com\/authors\/paul_sperry\/\">Paul Sperry<\/a>, RealClearInvestigations<br \/>May 4, 2022<\/h2>\n<p>The FBI decision to spy on a former Trump campaign adviser hinged on an unsubstantiated rumor from a Clinton campaign-paid\u00a0dossier that the Washington Post&#8217;s Moscow sources had quickly shot down as \u201cbullshit\u201d and \u201cimpossible,\u201d according to emails\u00a0disclosed last week to a D.C. court hearing the criminal case of\u00a0a\u00a0Clinton lawyer accused of lying to the FBI.<\/p>\n<div class=\"body-photo-left\">\n<div class=\"body-photo\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"body-photo-title\">Tom Hamburger:\u00a0<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Washington Post reporter told Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS that a tip about Carter Page was &#8220;bullshit&#8221; and &#8220;impossible.&#8221; But that didn&#8217;t stop the FBI from including it in a spy application.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Twitter\/@thamburger<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Though the FBI presumably had access to better sources than the newspaper, agents\u00a0did little to verify the rumor that Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page had secretly met with sanctioned Kremlin officials in Moscow. Instead, the bureau pounced on the dossier report the day it received it, immediately plugging the rumor into an\u00a0application under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to wiretap Page as a suspected Russian agent.<\/p>\n<p>The allegation, peddled to both\u00a0the press and FBI in the summer of 2016 by\u00a0Fusion GPS, an opposition research firm hired by Hillary Clinton\u2019s campaign to dig up dirt on Trump during the presidential race, proved to be the\u00a0linchpin in winning approval for the 2016 warrant, which was renewed three times in 2017 \u2013 even though the FBI learned there were serious holes in\u00a0the story and had failed to independently corroborate it.<\/p>\n<p>The revelations of early media skepticism about the Trump-Russia narrative before journalists embraced it are\u00a0included in a 62-page batch of emails between Fusion and prominent Beltway reporters released by Special Counsel John Durham, who is scouring the FBI\u2019s investigation of the Trump campaign for evidence of abuse and criminal wrongdoing.<\/p>\n<p>The documents suggest that some journalists, as keen as they were to report dirt on Trump, were nevertheless more cautious than FBI investigators about embracing hearsay information served up by Clinton agents. (The FBI declined comment.) The new material also offers a look at the lengths to which those working on Clinton\u2019s behalf went in order to seed the government with unverified rumors about Trump and Russia that amounted to a disinformation campaign. Among those targeted were powerful Democratic members of Congress, including House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who proved to be a willing collaborator.<\/p>\n<h3>Trump as &#8216;Manchurian Candidate&#8217;<\/h3>\n<p>The story of high-level Kremlin meetings didn\u2019t ring true with some in the press, who checked with sources in Moscow and pushed back on Fusion GPS. But journalists\u2019 interest in the story remained high during the campaign.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview, Page said he was flooded with calls during the summer of 2016 from Washington journalists, including veteran\u00a0reporters from the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. He said Fusion had misled them into believing they were\u00a0working on the story of their lifetimes \u2013 that a real-life \u201cManchurian candidate,\u201d or Russian sleeper agent, was running for president.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEach news outlet kept calling me,\u201d he said. \u201cOne by one.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Page said he strenuously denied the accusations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was B.S.,\u201d he said. \u201cI tried to warn them.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"body-photo-inline\">\n<div class=\"body-photo\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"body-photo-inline lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/554368_5_.png\" border=\"0\" alt=\"YouTube\/NBC News\" title=\"Glenn Simpson Peter Fritsch\" data-width=\"750\" data-height=\"440\" \/><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Peter Fritsch and Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS: Journalists were skeptical, at least for a time.<\/p>\n<p>YouTube\/NBC News<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>As eager as journalists may have been to make Trump appear to be a Kremlin operative, some were skeptical about what Fusion was telling\u00a0them about Page. Among those were now former Wall Street Journal foreign affairs\u00a0correspondent Jay Solomon, who used \u201cManchurian candidate\u201d in a July 2016 email exchange with Fusion, expressing his doubt. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cEveryone wants shit on this,\u201d insisted Fusion co-founder Peter Fritsch, a former Journal reporter himself, in an attempt to coax his old\u00a0colleague Solomon into covering the story.<\/p>\n<p>Fritsch then outlined the rumors Fusion had just received from Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer his firm had hired to help tie Trump to Russia as part of its contract with the Clinton campaign. Those rumors, contained in a series of memos known as the Steele dossier, were shared with the FBI, including \u201cIntelligence Report 94\u201d dated July 19, 2016. It claimed that during a July 2016 trip to Moscow, Page attended a &#8220;secret meeting&#8221; with Putin crony Igor Sechin to discuss lifting Ukraine-related sanctions against Russia. The dossier also alleged that Page met with Kremlin official Igor Divyekin to share compromising information about Clinton with the Trump campaign.<\/p>\n<h3>An &#8216;Easy Scoop,&#8217; Said GPS<\/h3>\n<p>\u201cThe easy scoop waiting for confirmation: that dude carter page met with igor sechin when he went to moscow earlier this month,\u201d Fritsch stated in a July 26, 2016, email pitching the story to Solomon. &#8220;sechin discussed energy deals and possible lifting of sanctions on himself et al. he also met with a senior kremlin official called divyekin, who told page they have good kompromat on hillary and offered to help. he also warned page they have good kompromat on the donald.\u201d (\u201cKompromat\u201d is compromising information typically used in blackmail.)<\/p>\n<div class=\"body-photo-right\">\n<div class=\"body-photo\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"body-photo-right lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/576554_5_.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"(AP Photo\/ Andrew Harnik, Pool)\" title=\"Capitol Breach Investigation\" data-width=\"750\" data-height=\"500\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Rep. Adam Schiff: A Fusion GPS-recommended source for a skeptical journalist.<\/p>\n<p>AP<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Added Fritsch, referring in part to the mass leak of Democratic emails by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/WikiLeaks#Allegations_of_anti-Clinton_and_pro-Trump_bias\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"WikiLeaks\" rel=\"noopener\">WikiLeaks<\/a>\u00a0before the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/2016_Democratic_National_Convention\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"2016 Democratic National Convention\" rel=\"noopener\">2016 Democratic National Convention<\/a>\u00a0in late July: \u201cneedless to say, a senior trump advisor meeting with a former kgb official close to putin, who is on a treasury\u00a0sanctions list, days before the republican convention and a big russian-backed wikileak would be huge news.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Indeed it would be \u2013 if it were true. \u201cThanks for this,\u201d Solomon said. \u201cWill run down.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But later that day, Solomon reported back that \u201cPage is neither confirming nor denying,\u201d so Fritsch suggested he \u201ccall adam schiff or\u00a0difi,\u201d referring to the then-ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a top Democrat on the\u00a0Senate Intelligence Committee. It is not clear what information Fritsch expected the two Democrats to provide. (Schiff would later\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/webcache.googleusercontent.com\/search?q=cache:A1fAtbSBSaQJ:https:\/\/time.com\/4706721\/comey-hearing-adam-schiff-transcript\/+&#038;cd=3&#038;hl=en&#038;ct=clnk&#038;gl=us\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">read<\/a>\u00a0the same raw dossier rumors about Page into the\u00a0congressional record during a public hearing about Trump\u2019s alleged Russian ties.)<\/p>\n<p>Three days later, Fusion&#8217;s attempts to plant their rumor in influential media outlets hit more resistance. Another Journal alumnus,\u00a0Tom Hamburger, said he was \u201cgetting kick back\u201d while trying to confirm the rumor for the Washington Post, where he worked on the\u00a0paper\u2019s national desk.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat Page met with Sechin or Ivanov. &#8216;Its [sic] bullshit. Impossible,\u2019 said one of our Moscow sources,\u201d Hamburger reported back to\u00a0Fusion co-founder Glenn Simpson, who also previously worked for the Journal. (The rumor included Sergei Ivanov, a top Putin aide.)\u00a0The Post\u2019s Moscow bureau chief at the time was David Filipov. Hamburger added that another reporter he knew \u201cdoesn\u2019t like this story\u201d and was passing on it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo worries, I don\u2019t expect lots of people to believe it,\u201d Simpson replied. \u201cIt is, indeed, hard to believe.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As Fusion was pushing the rumors to reporters that July, its subcontractor Steele was pushing them to FBI agents, who received copies of his dossier earlier in the month. Steele also briefed a top Justice Department official, Bruce Ohr, on the Carter Page rumors on July 30 during a breakfast at the Mayflower Hotel in D.C., and asked Ohr to relay them to FBI brass. The next day, the FBI officially opened its Crossfire Hurricane investigation targeting Trump advisers \u2013 though the bureau says this decision was based on a tip it had received from an Australian diplomat.<\/p>\n<p>For his part, Hamburger still pursued the story, asking for documents on Page later that month; and Fusion recycled the false rumor in an internal report, separate from the Steele dossier, which it emailed to Hamburger and another Post reporter in September.\u00a0<\/p>\n<div class=\"body-photo-left\">\n<div class=\"body-photo\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"body-photo-left lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/576591_5_.png\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Euractiv\/YouTube\" title=\"Obama, in Moscow,\" data-width=\"750\" data-height=\"456\" \/><\/div>\n<p>President Obama&#8217;s appearance at the New Economic School in Moscow in 2009 attracted none of the suspicion that attended Carter Page&#8217;s years later.<\/p>\n<p>Euractiv\/YouTube<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The report, which Fritsch claimed\u00a0that \u201cone of our [research] associates wrote,\u201d\u00a0went beyond even the dossier. It asserted that Page\u2019s July 8 speech\u00a0at the New Economic School in Moscow (where President Obama had also once spoken) was \u201cconcocted to give Page a public\u00a0explanation for his trip to Moscow, which sources say included secret meetings with top Kremlin officials, where the American\u00a0presidential campaign and U.S. sanctions against Russia were both discussed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Fritsch did not say who the Fusion \u201csources\u201d were. But around the same time, he and Simpson brought Steele to Washington to brief journalists from the Post, the New York Times, CNN, and Yahoo News on Page in a private room at the Tabard Inn, a hotel-bar long a favorite of Washington scribes.<\/p>\n<p>Fusion had finally found a media outlet to take the bait it had been chumming out to reporters for months. After meeting with Steele for about an hour, Yahoo News\u2019 Michael Isikoff ran with the rumors in a September 23 online\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/u-s-intel-officials-probe-ties-between-trump-adviser-and-kremlin-175046002.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">article<\/a>, which the FBI\u00a0then used to corroborate the dossier in its initial October 2016 FISA application, even\u00a0though the supposed corroboration was redundant: Steele and his dossier were Isikoff\u2019s source for the story. (Isikoff, who did not respond to requests for comment, would later write in a 2018 book he co-authored, \u201cRussian Roulette,\u201d that the rumors about Page were just \u201cpillow talk.\u201d)<\/p>\n<p>The Clinton campaign jumped on what it called Isikoff\u2019s \u201cbombshell report&#8221; and heavily promoted it on social media. Clinton campaign official Glen\u00a0Caplin issued a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.presidency.ucsb.edu\/documents\/hillary-for-america-statement-bombshell-report-about-trump-aides-chilling-ties-kremlin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">statement<\/a>\u00a0republishing the Yahoo piece in full and proclaiming:\u00a0&#8220;It&#8217;s chilling to learn that U.S. intelligence officials\u00a0are conducting a probe into suspected meetings between Trump&#8217;s foreign policy adviser Carter Page and members of Putin&#8217;s inner\u00a0circle while in Moscow \u2026 [T]his report suggests Page met with a sanctioned top Russian official to discuss the possibility of ending\u00a0U.S. sanctions against Russia under a Trump presidency \u2013 an action that could directly enrich both Trump and Page while\u00a0undermining American interests.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Added Caplin: &#8220;This is serious business and voters deserve the facts before election day.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But the media never reported the real facts behind the story \u2013 that it was all based on Clinton campaign opposition research \u2013 which allowed the rumors to survive without any real scrutiny for years.<\/p>\n<div class=\"body-photo-right\">\n<div class=\"body-photo\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"body-photo-right lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/559332_5_.png\" border=\"0\" alt=\"sergeimillian.com\" title=\"Sergei Millian\" data-width=\"750\" data-height=\"572\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Sergei Millian: He wasn&#8217;t the source of the Trump sex-tape story, and the Washington Post had to retract.<\/p>\n<p>sergeimillian.com<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The Washington Post eventually stopped paying attention to the red flags surrounding the dossier. The newspaper seized on other rumors Fusion fed reporters from the Clinton-paid document.<\/p>\n<p>Hamburger, for one, later bit on a tip that the source for the most explosive allegations in the dossier was a Trump supporter\u00a0with Kremlin ties. He reported in 2017 that Sergei Millian was behind\u00a0the claim that Russian President\u00a0Vladimir Putin had\u00a0compromising sex tapes of Trump and that he and Trump were engaged in a \u201cwell-developed conspiracy\u201d to steal the 2016 election.<\/p>\n<p>However, the Post had to retract his stories after\u00a0Special Counsel John Durham last year disclosed that Millian was fabricated as a\u00a0source. The prosecutor indicted Steele\u2019s \u201cprimary subsource,\u201d Igor Danchenko, for lying to the FBI when he told agents that Millian was a\u00a0source for the dossier. Millian had nothing to do with the dossier, as RCI\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.realclearinvestigations.com\/articles\/2021\/11\/10\/danchenko_indictment_how_dossier_non-source_sergei_millian_was_framed_803079.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reported<\/a>. Danchenko, who awaits trial, apparently made it all up.<\/p>\n<p>Hamburger did not respond to repeated requests for comment.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>&#8216;Pushed It Over&#8217; the Line<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Carter Page, who is\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/Search.aspx?FileName=\/docket\/docketfiles\/html\/public%5C21-1369.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">suing<\/a>\u00a0the former corporate parent of Yahoo News for defamation, suggested anti-Trump bias blinded the media to glaring\u00a0problems with the dossier. But even more alarming, he said, is how FBI leaders, whose text messages reveal that they shared the media\u2019s hatred for Trump, were even more reckless in gunning for him. Page said it\u2019s outrageous that, at least initially, the press seemed to have \u201chigher ethical standards\u201d\u00a0than FBI headquarters.<\/p>\n<p>On Sept. 19, 2016, the FBI\u2019s Crossfire Hurricane team formally received Steele\u2019s dossier Report 94 alleging Page\u2019s secret\u00a0Kremlin meetings, according to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who detailed the FBI\u2019s handling of the\u00a0rumors in a 2019\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/storage\/120919-examination.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">report<\/a>. That same day, the team began discussions with department lawyers &#8220;to consider Steele&#8217;s reporting as part of a FISA application targeting Carter Page.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"body-photo-left\">\n<div class=\"body-photo\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"body-photo-left lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/538929_5_.png\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Patrick Henry College\" title=\"Brian Auten\" data-width=\"521\" data-height=\"600\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Brian Auten, FBI supervisor: The Steele dossier&#8217;s bogus &#8220;Report 94,&#8221; alleging secret Page-Russia meetings, helped make the case for spying on him.<\/p>\n<p>Patrick Henry College<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"body-photo-right\">\n<div class=\"body-photo\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"body-photo-right lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/533387_5_.png\" border=\"0\" alt=\"YouTube\/Fox News\" title=\"Kevin Clinesmith\" data-width=\"750\" data-height=\"497\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Kevin Clinesmith, FBI lawyer: He helped save the bureau&#8217;s case against Page by hiding exculpatory evidence.<\/p>\n<p>YouTube\/Fox News<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>In an email\u00a0to attorneys,\u00a0FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.realclearinvestigations.com\/articles\/2021\/03\/30\/meet_the_russiagate_prober_who_couldnt_verify_anything_in_the_steele_dossier_yet_said_nothing_for_years_769667.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Brian Auten<\/a>\u00a0forwarded an excerpt from Steele&#8217;s report\u00a0and asked, &#8220;Does\u00a0this put us at least\u00a0*that*\u00a0much closer to a full FISA on [Carter Page]?\u201d The FBI agent handling the case said the\u00a0rumors from Steele\u00a0&#8220;supplied missing information in terms of what Page may have been doing during his\u00a0July\u00a02016\u00a0visit to Moscow.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The attorneys\u00a0thought it was a &#8220;close call&#8221; when they first discussed a FISA targeting Page in\u00a0early\u00a0August, Horowitz relayed in his report,\u00a0but the Steele reporting in September &#8220;pushed it over&#8221;\u00a0the line in\u00a0terms of establishing probable cause.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In the run-up to the FBI securing approval for the FISA request in late October 2016, the bureau tasked an undercover informant,\u00a0Stefan Halper, to question Page about the alleged meetings with Kremlin officials. Halper struck out. In a conversation Halper recorded surreptitiously, Page not only denied\u00a0huddling with Sechin and Divyekin but said he had never even heard of Divyekin. The FBI decided not to include these inconvenient facts in its\u00a0FISA warrant application, an omission the Justice Department\u2019s inspector general found striking.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The application did not contain these denials even though the application relied upon the allegations in Report 94 that Page had\u00a0secret meetings with both Sechin and Divyekin,\u201d the Horowitz report\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/storage\/120919-examination.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">noted<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It wasn\u2019t the only exculpatory\u00a0evidence the FBI left out of its FISA applications. It also omitted information it possessed showing that Page, who had once worked in Moscow as a Merrill Lynch\u00a0investment banker, had earlier assisted the FBI in catching a Russian spy,\u00a0as RealClearInvestigations first\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.realclearinvestigations.com\/articles\/2018\/09\/05\/fbi_kept_from_fisa_court_russian_view_of_page_as_idiot.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reported<\/a>.\u00a0The\u00a0former Navy lieutenant also previously\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.realclearinvestigations.com\/articles\/2021\/01\/25\/timeline_how_the_fbi_repeatedly_disregarded_evidence_carter_page_was_no_traitor_to_spy_on_him_126877.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">helped<\/a>\u00a0the CIA monitor Russia, something an FBI attorney deliberately hid from the FISA court. (The lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, was recently convicted of charges related to his doctoring of a government email documenting Page\u2019s role as a CIA source.)<\/p>\n<p>In early 2017, as the FBI was preparing to reapply for wiretaps on Page, Steele&#8217;s primary subsource Danchenko told\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.realclearinvestigations.com\/articles\/2021\/03\/30\/g-man_professed_the_golden_rule_and_did_onto_the_trump_campaign_770151.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Auten<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0other FBI officials that he had made it clear to Steele that he had only heard a rumor that such clandestine meetings might take place\u00a0but not that they actually occurred\u00a0as Steele wrote in his dossier. The FBI nonetheless omitted from subsequent FISA renewal\u00a0applications the revelation of Danchenko backing away from the critical piece of information supporting probable cause and admitting it was merely hearsay.<\/p>\n<p>In the end, \u201cThe FBI was unable to determine whether a meeting between Sechin and Page took place,\u201d Horowitz\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/storage\/120919-examination.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">wrote<\/a>\u00a0in his\u00a0report.<\/p>\n<p>Page said it\u2019s \u201cchilling\u201d that the nation\u2019s most powerful police force could act so cavalierly, disregarding basic investigative procedures\u00a0like verifying tips and rumors before obtaining wiretaps on a U.S. citizen.<\/p>\n<p>Worse, he said, is how the FBI misled the secret FISA court. In a 2020 review of the applications, the powerful court determined that\u00a0at least two of the surveillance warrants were invalid and therefore illegal. Page is now\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.courtlistener.com\/docket\/18694445\/page-v-comey\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">suing<\/a> both the FBI and Justice Department for\u00a0$75 million for violating his constitutional rights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>X Story Stream  recent articles  The FBI treated as suspicious Carter Page&#8217;s 2016 trip to Moscow involving his speech at the New<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":498,"featured_media":1888901,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1463410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_finder_url":"https:\/\/www.realclearinvestigations.com\/articles\/2022\/05\/04\/to_spy_on_a_trump_aide_the_fbi_pursued_a_dossier_rumor_the_press_shot_down_as_bullshit_830170.html","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1463410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/498"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1463410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1463410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1888901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1463410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1463410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1463410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}