Former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page says that he’s set a date to publicly testify before the House Intelligence Committee as part of its investigation into Russia’s election interference, but the committee is staying mum.
In a letter responding to former CIA Director James Brennan’s Tuesday testimony before the committee, Page told the panel’s leaders that he looked forward to his “turn” to share his version of events on the “scheduled” date of June 6.
“The vast majority of the open session testimony by Mr. Brennan and other Clinton/Obama regime appointees who have recently appeared before your committee loyally presented one biased viewpoint and base of experience,” Page wrote. “When I have my turn next month, I look forward to adding some accurate insights regarding what has really been happening in Russia over recent years including in 2016.”
Asked if the committee had confirmed his appearance for June 6, Page told TPM in an email that no date was “fully confirmed yet, but it should tentatively be that week.”
A spokesperson for committee Chair Mike Conaway (R-TX) did not respond to TPM’s request for comment. A spokesperson for Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the committee’s ranking Democrat, declined to comment on Page’s letter.
Page is one of four former Trump campaign associates known to be under federal and congressional scrutiny for potential contacts with Russian operatives during the 2016 election.
The former aide told ABC News in an interview Wednesday that he had retained legal counsel. Asked by TPM which firm or attorney he was working with, Page demurred.
“There are a range of lawyers helping me. Including some nonprofits that are focused on fighting back against civil rights abuses in America,” he told TPM in an email. “Obviously there is a lot of low hanging fruit here, given the crimes committed against me last year by the Obama Administration.”
Page’s Tuesday missive is in keeping with the steady stream of correspondence he has addressed to the committee in recent weeks and made available to the press. It comes on the heels of another 23-page letter dated Monday, in which he disparages the Russia investigations as Cold War-style witch hunts carried out by allies of the “Clinton/Obama regime.”
The letters are heavy with footnotes and meticulously-formatted charts that attempt to knock down public statements made by intelligence committee members and intelligence officials. Page also repeatedly quotes President Donald Trump, at one point in Monday’s letter invoking a U.S. Coast Guard Academy commencement address where the Trump informed graduates that “things are not always fair.”
Rejecting the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that Russia intervened with the express aim of electing Trump, Page writes that during almost three decades of visiting and conducting business in Russia, he “personally saw no active measures by the Russian government or any other foreign entities to interfere in any political campaigns whatsoever.”
“I have never done anything wrong in Russia or with any Russian person,” Page insists.
In the letters, Page argues that the real issue is not possible collusion between Trump campaign officials and Russia, but rather the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrant that the Washington Post reported had been obtained against Page once he left the campaign out of concern he “was acting as an agent of a foreign power.”
His offer to testify seems to be contingent on two factors: the “release of the contents” of what he called this “illegitimate” FISA warrant and that he is allowed to speak in an open hearing.
Page suggested that the testimony be “live-streamed via the internet, on public-access television or perhaps C-SPAN-8” so that the American people can learn the “truth.”
The former campaign adviser has yet to comply with a request from the Senate Intelligence Committee to turn over records of any of his meetings, written communications and real estate transactions related to Russia.
Read both letters below:
Oh… but I was thinking,
What an insult. That Jack-in-the-Box can sue you for slander and libel.
When I read the headline I assumed Page had written the letters in crayon.