The FBI asks permission from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to surveil Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, noting “The FBI believes that Page has been collaborating and conspiring with the Russian government.”
The FBI releases the documents, with redactions, in July 2018.
The documents said “the FBI believes that the Russian government’s efforts are being coordinated with Page and perhaps other individuals associated with” Trump’s campaign. They also said Page “has established relationships with Russian government officials, including Russian intelligence officers”.
Page is an energy consultant and foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign. He lived in Moscow from 2004 to 2007, where he worked for a firm on deals for Gazprom, the energy giant in business with Putin friend and crime ring leader Semion Mogilevich. Page founded a U.S. investment fund called Global Energy Capital in 2008 with former Gazprom executive Sergei Yatsenko. In April 2013, he wrote a letter to an academic publisher boasting about his previous work as an adviser to the Kremlin. Sometime in 2014, the FBI received a warrant to monitor Page under suspicions that he was a victim of Russian intelligence targeting.
When Page’s links to the Kremlin are publicized a year later, Donald Trump says “I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to him.”
Sources
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4614708/Carter-Page-FISA-Application.pdf
https://time.com/5132126/carter-page-russia-2013-letter/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/at-least-nine-people-in-trumps-orbit-had-contact-with-russians-during-campaign-and-transition/2017/11/05/07c9993c-bf4c-11e7-959c-fe2b598d8c00_story.html?utm_term=.c8749d4d33ed&itid=lk_inline_manual_66
https://www.justsecurity.org/46786/timeline-carter-pages-contacts-russia/
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