Trump backer asks intel committee for information on him by Obama administration

Washington Times:

Carter Page, an energy investor under scrutiny by the FBI in the Trump-Russia probe, is asking the Senate intelligence committee to provide information from Obama administration-ordered wiretaps and surveillance on him.

“Since their colleagues in the intelligence community already have most of the same personal information which was reportedly sucked up during the Obama administration’s domestic political intelligence operation, I’m hoping that the Senate provides me the same information in time to proceed with the next steps in the current fishing expedition,” Mr. Page told The Washington Times. “Let’s see what happens.”

Mr. Page made the comment after the committee sent him an April 28 letter asking for an exhaustive list of any contacts and communications he has had with Russian officials or business people since mid-2015. There is no request for any specific meeting.


Mr. Page portrays himself as a Navy veteran and patriotic American caught up in an FBI and congressional “fanciful witch hunt.” He and his Global Energy Capital have done business with Russians for more than a decade. He was once posted in Moscow for Merrill Lynch banking.

He signed onto the Donald Trump campaign as minor volunteer surrogate and Russia adviser in the early stages of an erratic organization looking to fill key roles.
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It appears that some of the gossip about Mr. Page came from a notorious dossier written by former British spy Christopher Steele and was circulated in Washington by Democrat-linked investigative firm Fusion GPS. The 35-page dossier became public on Jan. 10 on the BuzzFeed website.

The dossier made two sensational charges against Mr. Page: that he met and cut deals with two Kremlin-connected men when he traveled to Moscow in July and that he delivered a public speech covered by the news media. The dossier also said he conspired with Paul Manafort, a one-time Trump campaign manager, to work with Russian agents to hack the Democrats.

Mr. Page calls both accusations fabrications, as have other targets named in the anti-Trump dossier. He said he has never met with the two men identified in the dossier and knew nothing about the hacking of Democratic Party computers until stories appeared in the press.

Mr. Manafort also has said the charges are false.
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There is more.

This is a smart move on Page's part.  It allows him to prepared for his testimony with the same documents that the committee has to question him and it allows him to refresh his memory of events,  Whether they will provide him with potentially classified documents may become a dilemma for the committee.

My impression is that Page was a minor player in the Trump campaign who has a history of trying to hustle business with Russia.  That does not mean he was a spy, but it does mean he was a business man.