Chuck Ross | Investigative Reporter
- Carter Page discussed his interactions with FBI informant Stefan Halper on “Fox News Sunday.”
- The former Trump campaign aide said that his contacts with Halper “intensified” just before the FBI applied for its first spy warrant against him in October 2016.
- The timing of the contact raises questions over whether the FBI relied on information from Halper as part of its spy warrant application.
Carter Page said Sunday that his contacts with Stefan Halper, an alleged FBI informant, “intensified” in the month before the U.S. government obtained its first spy warrant against the former Trump campaign aide.
“My conversations with him intensified right, the month before my illegitimate FISA warrant, in September 2016, when all these defamatory articles were being placed by the DNC,” Page said in an interview with Maria Bartiromo on “Fox Sunday Futures.”
The FBI obtained a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant against Page on Oct. 21, 2016. The application for the FISA relied heavily on information from Christopher Steele, the former British spy who compiled the anti-Trump dossier on behalf of the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign.
Pages remarks raise the possibility that the FBI also used information from Halper, a former Cambridge professor, in its efforts to collect information for the FISA application. Halper, who served in three Republican administrations and was reportedly an FBI informant for two decades, had contact during the 2016 campaign with Page and two other Trump advisers, Sam Clovis and George Papadopoulos. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Cambridge Prof With CIA, MI6 Ties Made Contact With Trump Aide During Campaign, Beyond)
Halper and Page first met before a political event at Cambridge on July 10, 2016, three weeks before the FBI officially opened its investigation of the Trump campaigns possible links to Russia.
Page has told The Daily Caller News Foundation that he and Halper spoke one-on-one at the event, which spanned several days. The FBI has yet to explain why an FBI informant met with Halper before the official opening of Crossfire Hurricane, the code name for the Trump-Russia probe.
Page and Halper met for the second time on Aug. 20, 2016, when Page visited the former professor at his farm in Virginia. They remained in contact through September 2017, the month that the fourth and final FISA warrant against Page expired.
WATCH:
Page said Sunday that he trusted Halper because the former professor presented himself as sympathetic to his plight as a target of media allegations that he was a Kremlin agent. Page, an energy consultant by trade, says he received numerous death threats after Yahoo! News published a story on Sept. 23, 2016 that said he had contacts in Moscow in July 2016 with two Kremlin insiders.
Steele was a source for that article, though that fact was not known until months after the story was published.
Key claims in the dossier have been all but debunked by the special counsels report, which found no evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russian government. Though Steele accused Page of being one of the key players in a scheme to collude with the Kremlin, Page was not charged in the special counsels probe. He has vehemently denied Steeles claims.
Page says that he trusted Halper at the time of their interactions and is still willing to give the alleged informant the benefit of the doubt since his work for the FBI has yet to be officially confirmed.
“If our relationship was indeed built on the instructions of U.S. government intellRead More – Source
Chuck Ross | Investigative Reporter
- Carter Page discussed his interactions with FBI informant Stefan Halper on “Fox News Sunday.”
- The former Trump campaign aide said that his contacts with Halper “intensified” just before the FBI applied for its first spy warrant against him in October 2016.
- The timing of the contact raises questions over whether the FBI relied on information from Halper as part of its spy warrant application.
Carter Page said Sunday that his contacts with Stefan Halper, an alleged FBI informant, “intensified” in the month before the U.S. government obtained its first spy warrant against the former Trump campaign aide.
“My conversations with him intensified right, the month before my illegitimate FISA warrant, in September 2016, when all these defamatory articles were being placed by the DNC,” Page said in an interview with Maria Bartiromo on “Fox Sunday Futures.”
The FBI obtained a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant against Page on Oct. 21, 2016. The application for the FISA relied heavily on information from Christopher Steele, the former British spy who compiled the anti-Trump dossier on behalf of the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign.
Pages remarks raise the possibility that the FBI also used information from Halper, a former Cambridge professor, in its efforts to collect information for the FISA application. Halper, who served in three Republican administrations and was reportedly an FBI informant for two decades, had contact during the 2016 campaign with Page and two other Trump advisers, Sam Clovis and George Papadopoulos. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Cambridge Prof With CIA, MI6 Ties Made Contact With Trump Aide During Campaign, Beyond)
Halper and Page first met before a political event at Cambridge on July 10, 2016, three weeks before the FBI officially opened its investigation of the Trump campaigns possible links to Russia.
Page has told The Daily Caller News Foundation that he and Halper spoke one-on-one at the event, which spanned several days. The FBI has yet to explain why an FBI informant met with Halper before the official opening of Crossfire Hurricane, the code name for the Trump-Russia probe.
Page and Halper met for the second time on Aug. 20, 2016, when Page visited the former professor at his farm in Virginia. They remained in contact through September 2017, the month that the fourth and final FISA warrant against Page expired.
WATCH:
Page said Sunday that he trusted Halper because the former professor presented himself as sympathetic to his plight as a target of media allegations that he was a Kremlin agent. Page, an energy consultant by trade, says he received numerous death threats after Yahoo! News published a story on Sept. 23, 2016 that said he had contacts in Moscow in July 2016 with two Kremlin insiders.
Steele was a source for that article, though that fact was not known until months after the story was published.
Key claims in the dossier have been all but debunked by the special counsels report, which found no evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russian government. Though Steele accused Page of being one of the key players in a scheme to collude with the Kremlin, Page was not charged in the special counsels probe. He has vehemently denied Steeles claims.
Page says that he trusted Halper at the time of their interactions and is still willing to give the alleged informant the benefit of the doubt since his work for the FBI has yet to be officially confirmed.
“If our relationship was indeed built on the instructions of U.S. government intellRead More – Source
