There are two new developments in the story of the alleged “wiretapping”
of the Trump team during the campaign. The name of the Trump associate that was
the subject of a previously
known FISA warrant was named and several congressmen are disputing Rep.
Nunes’s claim that the intelligence community inappropriately unmasked subjects
of surveillance within the Trump campaign.
The Washington
Post reports that the FBI and the Justice Department obtained the warrant
to investigate Carter Page as early as last July. The investigation was part of
the counterintelligence effort opposing Russian interference in the election. The
government claimed that there was probable cause to believe that Page was
acting as the agent of a foreign power.
Page was listed as a foreign policy advisor by the Trump
campaign in March 2016. In August 2016, Trump spokeswoman Hope
Hicks called him an “informal advisor,” the Post
notes. By September, when the investigation of Page’s Russia ties was known, Trump
spokesman Jason Miller said that Page “has made no contribution to the campaign”
and Kellyanne Conway claimed that he was “certainly not part of the campaign
that I'm running.” In January, Sean Spicer described Page as “an individual who
the president-elect does not know and was put on notice months ago by the
campaign.”
In a February interview with the Los
Angeles Times, President Trump apparently described his relationship with
Page, saying, “I don't think I've ever spoken to him. I don't think I've ever
met him. And he actually said he was a very low-level member of I think a
committee for a short period of time. I don't think I ever met him. Now, it's
possible that I walked into a room and he was sitting there, but I don't think
I ever met him. I didn't talk to him ever. And he thought it was a joke.”
Carter Page denied the allegations against him in an
interview on Tuesday. “This confirms all of my suspicions about unjustified,
politically motivated government surveillance,” he said. “I have nothing to
hide.” No charges have been filed.
No charges have been filed against Susan Rice either. Rice was
alleged to have improperly handled surveillance by House Intelligence Chairman
Devin Nunes (R-Calif.). Nunes
claimed in March that intelligence on Trump staffers appeared to have been
legally collected, but was concerned that the identities of campaign team
members unmasked and details that had no intelligence value were widely
disseminated.
Now CNN
reports that Nunes’s claims are being refuted by both Democrats and Republicans
who have reviewed the same intelligence documents cited by Nunes. The unnamed
congressmen said that the requests made by Rice were “normal and appropriate”
for a National Security Advisor and that there was “absolutely” no smoking gun
in the reports.
Rice has also denied any wrongdoing. “There were occasions
when I would receive a report in which a US person was referred to -- name not
provided, just a US person -- and sometimes in that context, in order to
understand the importance of the report, and assess its significance, it was
necessary to find out, or request the information as to who the US official was,”
Rice said. “The notion that some people are trying to suggest, is that by
asking for the identity of a person is leaking it, is unequivocally false. There
is no connection between unmasking and leaking.”
President Trump told the New
York Times last week that he believes that Rice broke the law, but has thus
far failed to provide evidence or have the Justice Department file charges
against her. The president claimed that he would provide the evidence “at the
right time.”
There have many conflicting claims and counterclaims in the
surveillance scandal. The revelations that Trump aides were under investigation
for their ties to Russia is an established fact that was known before the
election. The identification of Carter Page as a target of the investigation is
likely accurate as well. It is also possible that the investigation was not
limited to Page.
The jury is still out on the matter of Nunes’s claim of
impropriety on the part of the intelligence community. If there is evidence
that Rice or other intelligence officers broke the law, then they should be
prosecuted and a sanitized version of the evidence should be made public to
support the extraordinary claims of Trump and Nunes.
So far there is no indication that any surveillance was
conducted illegally or for purely political purposes. Even Nunes
acknowledged that the intercepts of Trump campaign communications appeared
to be an “incidental collection” that could result from communication with
foreign nationals who are under surveillance. If this is how the intercepts
resulted, then the FBI was doing its job.
The one person who has the power to clear up the entire mess
is President Trump. The president has access to all the intelligence
information available and the power to have relevant portions declassified and
released to the public. So far, however, it appears that Mr. Trump is not
inclined to clear up the situation.
Originally published
on The
Resurgent
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