Carter Page, the American financial consultant who was tangentially and briefly associated with Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, told Breitbart News the controversial, largely discredited 35-page “dodgy dossier” served as the “central foundation” for the FBI’s extensive questioning of him about alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
On Monday, the Washington Post first reported that FBI agents repeatedly questioned Page for about ten hours over a series of five meetings in March about the Russia narrative.
“Both the blessing and the curse of all my discussions with the FBI rested on the fact that the Dodgy Dossier clearly stood as the central foundation of the interrogations,” Page told Breitbart News.
“All of the various questions, in one format or another, largely stemmed from those same specific lies marketed by the Clinton campaign during the 2016 election.”
He continued: “The blessing rested in the fact that every aspect of these lies could be readily disproved for anyone with basic common sense. … The curse is the fact that our country allowed this clearly biased and baseless political opposition research to drive law enforcement for many months.”
Page further claimed that the FBI agents who questioned him indicated their “management” was concerned that he did not believe the conclusions made in the January 6 National Intelligence report alleging Russian hacking meant to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.
The FBI questioning of Page in March took place before James Comey was fired as FBI director.
Page stated,
During my extensive discussions with the FBI agents just weeks before Comey’s departure, they acknowledged that I’m a loyal American veteran but indicated that their ‘management’ was concerned that I did not believe the conclusions of the fake January 6 intelligence report. …
If objective eyes aren’t allowed to question shoddy and politically-motivated intelligence analyses, our country might be destined for future tragedies as we’ve previously seen in the Middle East, Europe, Asia and beyond for generations.
Discredited dossier
The dossier that Page says was at the center of the FBI’s questioning of him reportedly also served as a “roadmap” for the FBI’s general investigation into unsubstantiated charges of coordination between Moscow and members of Trump’s presidential campaign.
The dossier further reportedly served as part of the FBI’s justification for seeking the FISA court’s approval to clandestinely monitor Page.
On April 11, the Washington Post cited “law enforcement and other U.S. officials” stating that, as part of its investigation into alleged Russian collusion, the FBI obtained a secret FISA court order last summer to monitor Page’s communications.
The dossier claimed that a “Russian source” alleged that Page met secretly in Moscow with Kremlin officials to discuss the possible lifting of U.S. sanctions as well as compiling a Kremlin “file” on Hillary Clinton. Page has steadfastly denied the dossier claims.
The same dossier contains wild and unproven claims that the Russians had information regarding Trump and sordid sexual acts, including the widely mocked claim that Trump hired prostitutes and had them urinate on a hotel room bed.
Citing a “Kremlin insider,” the dossier, which misspelled the name of a Russian diplomat, also claimed that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen held “secret meetings” with Kremlin officials in Prague in August 2016.
That charge unraveled after Cohen revealed he had never traveled to Prague, calling the story “totally fake, totally inaccurate.” The Atlantic confirmed Cohen’s whereabouts in New York and California during the period the dossier claimed that Cohen was in Prague. Cohen reportedly produced his passport showing he had not traveled to Prague.
In testimony earlier this month to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, former FBI Director James B. Comey admitted that he pushed back against a request from President Donald Trump to possibly investigate the origins of “salacious material” that the agency possessed in the course of its investigation into alleged Russian interference.
The “salacious material” is clearly a reference to the dossier, as Breitbart News reported.
In testimony last month, Comey repeatedly refused to answer questions about his agency’s ties to the dossier.
The dossier in question was authored by former intelligence agent Christopher Steele, who was reportedly paid by Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans to investigate Trump, raising questions about his partiality.
Last month, Steele conceded in court documents that part of his work still needed to be verified.
Author and journalist Paul Sperry reported in the New York Post last week that the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this month threatened to subpoena Fusion GPS, the secretive firm that hired Steele to produce the dossier, because the firm reportedly refused to answer questions about who financed the dossier.
Sperry raised further questions regarding possible connections between Fusion GPS and Hillary Clinton:
Fusion GPS was on the payroll of an unidentified Democratic ally of Clinton when it hired a long-retired British spy to dig up dirt on Trump. In 2012, Democrats hired Fusion GPS to uncover dirt on GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney. And in 2015, Democratic ally Planned Parenthood retained Fusion GPS to investigate pro-life activists protesting the abortion group.
Moreover, federal records show a key co-founder and partner in the firm was a Hillary Clinton donor and supporter of her presidential campaign.
In September 2016, while Fusion GPS was quietly shopping the dirty dossier on Trump around Washington, its co-founder and partner Peter R. Fritsch contributed at least $1,000 to the Hillary Victory Fund and the Hillary For America campaign, Federal Election Commission data show. His wife also donated money to Hillary’s campaign.
Page and campaign
Regarding the FBI’s questioning of Page, the Washington Post reported on Monday:
The interviews with the FBI are the most extensive known questioning of a potential suspect in the probe of possible Russian connections to associates of President Trump. The questioning of Page came more than a month before the Russian investigation was put under the direction of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III.
Page confirmed Monday that the interviews occurred, calling them “extensive discussions.” He declined to say if he has spoken to investigators since the March interviews.
He said the FBI agents “acknowledged that I’m a loyal American veteran but indicated that their management was concerned that I did not believe the conclusions” of a Jan 6 U.S. intelligence report describing Russian government interference in the U.S. election. “Our frank and open conversations gave me confidence that there are still logical, honest individuals at the bureau who respect civil rights and the Constitution,’’ he said.
Page’s role in Trump’s presidential campaign has long been seemingly exaggerated in the news media.
In an interview with the Post’s editorial board last March, Trump briefly mentioned Page as a member of his foreign policy advisory team. Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks clarified that Page’s role was “informal.”
Page has been cited in various news media reports as an “ex-foreign policy adviser” to Trump’s campaign and a “Trump associate.” An article in the New Yorker recently claimed he was a member of Trump’s “inner circle.”
In a letter to the House Intelligence Committee last month, Page stated that he never met Trump and that he was an “informal, unpaid campaign volunteer” and a “very junior member of the Trump movement who didn’t actually have any direct one-on-one discussions or meetings with our candidate.”
Page charges that the news media has been inflating his relationship with Trump’s presidential campaign in an effort to tarnish the U.S. president.
Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.
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