The FBI obtained a secret order last summer to listen to the talks adviser to presidential candidate Donald trump in the investigation of possible relationships between Russia and the presidential campaign, said law enforcement officials and other us officials.
The FBI and the justice Department got a warrant for wiretapping Carter Paige (Carter Page), convincing the Court on the supervision of foreign intelligence, that there is reason to believe Paige agent of a foreign power, in this case, Russia, sources say.
This serves as the most obvious proof that the FBI had reason to believe that during the presidential campaign of 2016 Advisor trump was in contact with Russian agents. Such contacts are now in the center of the investigation of the question of whether coordinated the presidential campaign of trump with the Russian government to shift the advantage in favor of trump.
Page was not charged, therefore, it remains unclear whether the Ministry of justice to draw him in as a defendant in connection with Russia’s intervention in the presidential election of 2016. The investigation of the intelligence regarding the Russian attempts to influence American elections started in July of 2016, officials say. Most of such investigations does not lead to the prosecution of criminal offences.
Officials spoke about the court order on condition of anonymity because they do not have permission to discuss details of the investigation counterintelligence.
In an interview with the editors of the Washington Post in March of 2016, trump presented page, previously involved in investment banking in Moscow as a foreign policy adviser in his presidential campaign. Press Secretary of his staff hope Hicks (Hicks Hope) to further characterize the role of Paige as “informal”.
Paige has repeatedly denied that the illegal nature of his relations with the headquarters of the trump and Russia.
“This confirms all my suspicions about the undue, politically motivated surveillance by the government”, — said Paige in an interview on Tuesday, April 11. “I have nothing to hide.” He compared the spying on him with illegal wiretapping, the FBI and the Ministry of justice leader of the struggle for civil rights Martin Luther king Jr.
The white house, FBI and Department of justice refused to give any comments.
In March of this year, FBI Director James B. Komi (James B. Comey) said in public statement to the Committee, the internal intelligence that the Bureau is investigating the attempts of the Russian government to intervene in the presidential elections in 2016.
Komi said that the investigation includes the study of the “grounds of any relationships between individuals associated with the campaign of trump, and the Russian government, and the presence of any relationship between headquarters and the trump of Russia’s actions”.
Comey has declined to comment on the hearings, what individuals was discussed, including not said anything about Paige, who worked a decade ago at Merrill Lynch in Moscow and invested in Russian energy giant Gazprom.
During the hearings last year, lawmakers from the democratic party has repeatedly stressed that the contacts page in Russia are a concern.
Judges passing orders in accordance with the Act of covert surveillance for the purposes of foreign intelligence, responsible for the most significant cases for national security, their verdicts are among the most carefully guarded secrets in the world of American law enforcement and intelligence. Any application to the Court in cases of supervision of foreign intelligence must be approved at the highest levels in the Ministry of justice and the FBI.
Application for Court order in cases of supervision of foreign intelligence, told Komi and are often thicker than his wrists, and all this volume reflects all the work that needs to be done by the lawyers of the Ministry of justice and the FBI agents to convince a judge that such surveillance is appropriate in the investigation.
The announcement by the government to get a warrant to monitor the page includes the Declaration that was giving investigators reason to believe Paige agent Russian governments who knowingly participated in covert intelligence operations in the interests of Moscow, transmit the sources.
In addition, the application listed his contacts with the employee of the Russian intelligence in 2013 in new York city, say sources. These contacts had previously surfaced in a Federal espionage case, which the Ministry of justice led against the intelligence officer and two other Russian agents. In addition, the application stated that Paige engage in other contacts with the Russian secret service, which was not disclosed publicly, according to officials.
The application for electronic surveillance in accordance with the Act of covert surveillance should not contain any evidence of the crime. However, obtained through eavesdropping of the information can be used for criminal investigations and may be used by the prosecution.
The application also demonstrated that the FBI and the Department of justice’s national security since July, have tried to determine the scale of the network associates, employed by Russia in an attempt to influence the election of 2016, sources say.
Since the release of the 90-day order, he repeatedly updated the court on the supervision of foreign intelligence, the sources said.
In February, page told the program “PBS NewsHour” that he was “the youngest member of the group of advisers on foreign policy in campaign trump”.
According to a former campaign adviser to trump, Paige was prepared memoranda on policy for the campaign and several times requested a meeting with trump, although that request was never granted. “He was one of the most active participants of the campaign in terms of communication,” says the Advisor.
According to a campaign adviser, Paige attended three dinners held by the headquarters for advisers on foreign policy in the spring and summer of 2016 to meet the band, he came from new York to Washington. Despite the lack of trump, Senator Jeff Seshns (Jeff Sessions), the closest person to the Trump, nominated by the attorney General called for one of the meetings of the group page in the end of the summer, according to the adviser of the campaign.
The role of Paige as a campaign adviser to trump caused alarm in the past year, more authoritative experts in foreign policy, partly due to outright praise page of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his criticism of us sanctions related to the military intervention of Moscow in Ukraine.
In July, Paige went to Moscow, where he gave a speech sharply criticizing United States policy towards Russia.
While in Moscow, Paige, presumably, met with Igor Sechin, a close Putin’s man and CEO of the energy company Rosneft, as evidenced from the dossier, assembled by a former employee of British intelligence and read by Congressman Adam B. Schiff (Adam B. Schiff), a senior Democrat in the Committee on domestic intelligence. According to sources, some of the information in the dossier was checked by us intelligence agencies, and some don’t, while the rest of him can neither be proved nor disproved.
Tuesday Paige dismissive of what he called “questionable records” with false speculation.
Paige denied that specified in the dossier of the meeting, saying that never in my life did not meet with Sechin and wants to speak before Congress to clear his name. The press-Secretary of Rosneft said in a conversation with Politico that the assumption about the meeting with Sechin page was “absurd.” Paige said in September that during that trip he had a small meeting with Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Arkady Dvorkovich.
Komi has refused to discuss details of the investigation associated with the actions of Russia, but during one speech last month, he cited the process of obtaining a warrant from the court in cases of supervision of foreign intelligence as evidence that state intelligence resources are used with great caution, and under serious supervision.
“To get permission to conduct electronic surveillance in the United States, you need to go through tedious procedure. And rightly so,” he told the audience gathered at the University of Texas of Austin.
Sources said that the FBI and the justice Department particularly reluctant to have the warrants against members of staff during the presidential race of 2016 because of fears that agents inadvertently overhear political conversations. For receiving a warrant from the Court on the supervision of foreign intelligence investigation should show that the main purpose of the order is to obtain foreign intelligence information.
Paige — the only American to listen to the conversations in which the framework of the “Russian” investigation was requested a court order in cases of supervision of foreign intelligence, sources say.
The FBI routinely receives a court order to monitor conversations of foreign diplomats in the United States, including the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Negotiations Kislyak and Michael Flynn (Michael Flynn) who was the first adviser to trump issues of national security, was recorded in December 2016. In February 2017 the Washington Post wrote that Flynn gave the elected Vice-President Mike Pence (Mike Pence) and others the wrong information about his contacts with Kislyak, thereby pushing trump to the decision to dismiss.
In March, trump has made groundless charges that the trump Tower in new York is under the supervision of US intelligence. A little later in the same month, Congressman Devin Nuns (Devin Nunes), Chairman of the Committee on domestic intelligence, and one of the members of the provisional government of trump, made an accusation that because of the report of the intelligence services, “widespread” data about people “associated with the new presidential administration, contains information that does not have obvious value for intelligence.” According to him, no case was associated with Russia. A court order in cases of supervision of foreign intelligence against the page is not associated with any prosecution.
Last month the former Director of national intelligence James R. Clapper, Jr. (James R. Clapper Jr.) told the NBC program “Meet the Press” that law enforcement Agency of the USA has not received any court orders to listen in to conversations trump, both as candidate and as President-elect and his staff. However, Clapper did not say anything about that, was there any orders against employees of trump.
For three years before becoming an Advisor in the headquarters of the trump, Paige caught the attention of the counterintelligence agents of the FBI received information that the suspects of espionage, the Russians had intended to use it as a source of information.
Then, in 2013, was recorded as one of the Russian suspects Like Victor, who played the role of diplomat and later charged by Federal prosecutors that he was a secret agent for a foreign government, discussed the attempt to obtain the page information and documents. This discussion was recorded in detail in the indictment by the Federal Prosecutor and other Similar suspects. Paige appears in court documents of this case of espionage only as “Man 1”. Familiar with the case sources claim that “Man 1” is Paige.
In one secretly recorded conversation detailed in the indictment, says Like that “Paige wrote that he was sorry, he went to Moscow and forgot to check the mail, but he wants to meet as soon as I return. I think he’s an idiot and forgot who I am. Plus he writes me in Russian to practice with. He flies to Moscow more than I do. It is stuck on Gazprom, because he believes that if they have a project, he can succeed. Maybe it is. Don’t know, but he obviously wants to earn a lot of money.”
In the same court document says that in June 2013, Paige told the FBI agents that he met Such at the energy Symposium in new York, where they exchanged contacts. Further meetings Paige shared with the Russians their views on the state of the energy industry, as well as documents related to energy business, as evidenced by court documents.
To write Like said that he likes the “enthusiasm” of the page, but he plans to use it for information and nothing to offer in return. “Do you promise to provide a service for a service. You get the documents from him and tell that he was rolling away,” says the record, Such as evidence from court documents.
Paige said that the information he provided in 2013 did not contain anything secret. He described it as the “base intangible information and public documents research.” He said he helped prosecutors in the case against Evgeny Buryakov, pleaded guilty to intent to operate in the United States as secret agent of Russian intelligence.
