by WorldTribune Staff, February 26, 2020
What has been uncovered thus far in the FBI’s spying on the Trump campaign is just “the tip of the iceberg,” said a Trump associate who was one of the FBI’s primary targets in 2016.
“It was a broad array of people, and so far there has been no accountability,” Carter Page told The Washington Times in an interview published on Feb. 25.
“I have a lot of questions that IG Horowitz never covered. These need to be answered ASAP. I am also going to be taking some action. There’s much more to come,” Page said.
Page, who has spent the last three years clearing his name, said in the interview that he has been conducting his own inquiries for a project he cannot yet detail. The goal, he said, is to go beyond the surveillance abuses uncovered by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz.
“Tip of the iceberg is a good way to describe it,” Page said.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, has announced a new investigation into Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuse. Graham has asked 17 Department of Justice and FBI officials to testify.
Page said he has drafted 19 questions he wants the Senate committee to ask Horowitz.
Between October 2016 and September 2017, the FBI acquired four wiretap warrants on Page. Horowitz said in his Dec. 9 report that those FISA warrants were riddled with errors and omissions.
Last month, the DOJ ruled the last two FISA warrants were invalid and suggested the first two warrants are also under scrutiny.
Horowitz was particularly critical of the FBI New York field office agent, identified as “Case Agent 1”, who oversaw the Page investigation.
Page told The Times that he sat down for five interviews with Case Agent 1.
“I think there’s a lot of bad actors who deserve accountability,” Page said. “To say that he is the one and only kind of main person responsible, I think, ignores a lot of negligent people.”
According to Horowitz, “Case Agent 1” first pushed for a FISA warrant on Page in August 2016, but that was rejected by the DOJ. A month later, the FBI began receiving the Christopher Steele dossier, which accused Page of being in an election conspiracy with the Kremlin.
The dossier was funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. It proved to be the crucial piece of evidence to win a judge’s approval for a wiretap in October 2016.
The dossier’s allegations have turned out to be false, according to official government reports.
In perhaps the most glaring omission, Case Agent 1 interviewed Steele’s main Russian source in January 2017. The source said he had merely repeated Kremlin gossip to Steele, not firsthand knowledge. The source’s remarks seemed to greatly undercut Steele’s accusations, but Case Agent 1 never passed them along to the DOJ.
Case Agent 1 wrote in the affidavit that Steele’s past work for the FBI had been largely corroborated and used in criminal trials. Horowitz said both statements were untrue.
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