After testifying to the House Intelligence Committee behind closed doors on Thursday, former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page told CNN that he told Jeff Sessions that he had plans to travel to Russia in July 2016.
“Back in June 2016, I mentioned in passing that I happened to be planning to give a speech at a university in Moscow,” Page told CNN. “Completely unrelated to my limited volunteer role with the campaign and as I’ve done dozens of times throughout my life. Understandably, it was as irrelevant then as it is now. If it weren’t for the dodgy dossier and all the chaos that those complete lies had created, my passing comment’s complete lack of relevance should go without saying.”
Page told CNN that it was the only time he met Sessions, who at the time was a national security adviser to the campaign and now serves as attorney general.
Page said that he told this to the House Intelligence Committee, and the Republican leading the committee’s Russia probe, Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX) confirmed that to CNN. Conaway said that Page told the committee that Sessions did not react to Page’s heads up about the trip.
“I don’t make anything sinister out of it. He said Sessions did not react or comment one way or the other,” Conaway told CNN. “If I were Sessions, I wouldn’t have recalled it either. It was just in passing. He was walking out of the room. A guy he had never met before, grabs him, ‘Hey, I’m out on the team. I changed my travel plans to go to Russia.'”
Page’s claim that he told Sessions about an upcoming trip to Russia comes after a guilty plea in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe revealed that a campaign aide, George Papadopolous, had conversations several people with ties to the Russian government and wanted to set up a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Sessions was reportedly present at a campaign meeting where Papadopolous floated the Trump-Putin meeting.
This guy is something else. Apparently he still thinks he is teaching lessons to James Bond on how to be a spy, while pretending he is Perry Mason by acting as his own attorney.
Whatever.
He just made Sessions seat a whole lot hotter.
That “dodgy dossier” - wow, that phrasing is unique to this dossier. Might want to pick a different adjective, Carter. It’s sort of like mixing metaphors - but in this case mixing up major scandals from the US and the UK - and about 14 years.
Interesting that he uses the word “dodgy” to describe the dossier. That’s what I would call him from the times I’ve seen him in interviews. Clearly, this goofball is projecting his own method when answering questions.
The first rule of Spy Club is don’t let people who are too squirrelly to be spies into Spy Club.
Even a blind squirrel implicates an Attorney General now and then.