Page: I Never Gave Russian Officials Info ‘Beyond What You Could See On CNN’

Carter Page, an adviser to U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, speaks at the graduation ceremony for the New Economic School in Moscow, Russia, Friday, July 8, 2016. Page is a former investment banke... Carter Page, an adviser to U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, speaks at the graduation ceremony for the New Economic School in Moscow, Russia, Friday, July 8, 2016. Page is a former investment banker who previously worked in Russia. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin) MORE LESS
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Carter Page, a onetime foreign policy adviser to President Donald Trump’s campaign, on Saturday said his discussions with Russian officials only covered “publicly available immaterial information.”

“Nothing I was ever asked to do, or no information I was ever asked for, was anything beyond what you could see on CNN,” he said in an interview on the same network. “Nothing I ever talked about with any Russian official extends beyond that publicly available immaterial information.”

CNN reported on Friday, citing unnamed U.S. officials, that in summer 2016 the FBI obtained evidence that Russian operatives tried to infiltrate the Trump campaign through its sprawling network of advisers, including Page.

Page on Saturday noted the word “tried” in CNN’s headline.

“Now they’re really reeling things back,” he said.

The Washington Post reported earlier in April that the FBI obtained a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to monitor Page’s communications after arguing that there was probable cause to believe he was acting as a Russian agent.

Page on Saturday cited CNN’s report last week that the FBI used a dossier containing allegations of ties between Trump and Russia as part of its justification for obtaining an order in 2016 to monitor Page’s communications.

“I think the dodgy dossier is the ultimate, at least from what we know thus far, the ultimate ‘try,’ and a swing and a miss thus far. But we’ll see what happens,” he said.

 

Page said “all of the false narrative that has been out there” was the “ultimate” election meddling, though he also questioned whether any interference took place to begin with.

“I think the bigger meddling in the election was what was done against me and potentially others,” he said.

 

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Notable Replies

  1. Write a book about it from your jail cell! Perfect environment! Some jails even have some CNN you may be able to watch in a limited way during good behavior!

  2. well… that’s clearly a relief… I mean after all, clear patriot that he is, he would surely confess if he’d turned over the hacks for the DNC or the thumb drive with the backdoors of the CIA if he’d done that…

  3. Who cares about what he told Russian “officials?”

    Those would be the spies who wore “Spy” name tags.

    The Russian unofficials are where the story is.

  4. “Nothing I was ever asked to do, or no information I was ever asked for, was anything beyond what you could see on CNN." Which raises the question of why the Russians would wine him and dine him to get information they could have got for free by watching CNN. Several ideas come to mind:

    1. They are very stupid.
    2. They don’t own a television or a computer connected to the Internet.
    3. They can’t stand Wolf Blitzer, and so never watch CNN.
    4. They were buttering him up to use him for their own purposes.

    Trick question, because it assumes that he’s telling the truth, to which he has shown no devotion in the past.

  5. You know your goose is cooked when your excuse starts “I never gave them nothing.”

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