WHAT EVERY-ONE GETS WRONG ABOUT CARTER PAGE

CARTER PAGE THE “FIG LEAF” USED AS AN EXCUSE TO SPY ON TRUMP CAMPAIGN

Carter Page phone taps were  a fig leaf  used for domestic political espionage into the Trump Campaign—prior to and after the election.

The tandard complaint often repeated by Republican TV commentators regarding FBI spying on Carter Page is that it’s “not right” for the government to wire-tap an American’s  phones. listen in on his  personal conversations and perusing his text messages.  Yes, that is not what the FBI should be doing to a free and innocent American citizen, but that is not the worst of it.

What too often is ignored is that Carter Page, who was for a short time an advisor to the Trump campaign and because of that position was  spied on to access telephone and text message conversations of the Trump campaign accessed while listening in to Page’s phones.  The Obama government appears to be complicit or directed the effort.   This act was a blatant misuse of federal agencies to gather  political information to use against the candidate of a competitor party before the 2016 election in an effort to sway the election toward the Hillary camp.  That is a serious breach of protocol and established law.

Carter Page graduated in the top of his class at US Naval Academy, was a Trident Scholar while in the Navy, earned an MBA from NYU, and a PhD from University of London.  After leaving the Navy he worked at Merril Lynch in NY and rose to COO of the energy and power group working in the NYC and London office of that company,  He opened the Moscow branch of  Merril Lynch in 2004 and remained in that position until 2007.  In 2008 he founded Global Energy Capital LLC and is currently a fellow of the Center for National Policy in Washington D.C.  Over his career Page had cultivated business and political leaders in Russia and in the energy sectors of that nation and former Soviet Block countries .

In March 21, 2016 Trump named Page to his group of foreign policy advisors. Page was to advise on energy policy and Russian relations.  Page like many others in the Trump campaign had views on foreign policy which were not part of the mainstream.  In July of 2016 he was invited to Moscow to give a speech to the New Economic School.  During the speech as a “private citizen” he criticized the Obama Administration foreign policy regarding its stasis and inability to move out of its “Cold War” mentality.  An American citizen abroad has the right to his opinions and a right to express them.  But in the hard fought campaign at home his statements critical of US policy and his alleged contacts with Russians regarding lifting US sanctions  hit the newsstands and caused onsternation in the Trump campaign. By September 2016, Trump was the GOP candidate and the election was approaching.  It was at this date, September 26, that Page resigned from the campaign having had few meetings and little impact on its course and realizing that “he was an unwonted distraction”.

 A week later., in October 2016 the FBI and Justice Department under President Obama applied to the FISA court for permission to wire tap the phones of Carter Page as part of an investigation into “Russian interference in the 2016” upcoming election.

It is important to note that Carter Page had been under similar surveillance in 2014, due to his activities in Moscow as a private business man.  The investigation had found nothing and Page was dropped from the investigation.  So the FBI was well aware of Page’s history and knew his history.  Page was a know quantity.  But his history of activities in Moscow and his reputation as an opponent of Obama foreign policy in that area gave the FBI and excuse to “investigate” Carter Page (again).  They may have presented thier brief to the FISA judge as simply a follow up incstigation.  But Page was only the figleaf used to conceal a more furtive and illegal investigation into the Trump campaign.  Because while listening in to Page’s phone calls and text messages they could also glean information from the utterings of anyone else he was communication with.  That was their actual goal.  

Political domestic espionage!