In a move sure to please Donald Trump, Carter Page is suing the Democratic National Committee and others over the infamous dossier that formed part of the basis of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants that intelligence officials sought against him. Accusing the DNC of bankrolling the dossier to “further their agenda,” the former Trump campaign aide alleged that the Democrats “sought to tarnish the Trump campaign and its affiliates”—Page among them—via “a dossier replete with falsehoods,” according to Fox News, which first reported the suit.
“The rule of law will prevail,” wrote attorney John Pierce, whose firm is also representing 2020 hopeful Tulsi Gabbard in her lawsuit against Hillary Clinton over her suggestion that the Hawaii representative is a “Russian asset.”
Page, a former foreign policy adviser to Trump’s 2016 campaign, was monitored that year by the Department of Justice over possible connections to Russia. Trump and his allies have portrayed Page as collateral damage in a deep state conspiracy to bring down the president, and accuse U.S. intelligence officials of using a disputed dossier by former British spy Christopher Steele as an excuse to conduct a “witch hunt” against Trump and his allies. But while an inspector general report last year found errors in the FISA warrants against Page, which indeed were justified in part by the Steele dossier, it threw cold water on the idea of a secret plot to thwart Trump. “We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the decisions,” Michael Horowitz wrote.
But that hasn’t stopped Trump from fueling conspiracy theories, calling the alleged scheme against him “Just Like Watergate, but bigger!” “They spied on my campaign, then tried to cover it up,” he raged last month. Page’s suit, filed in Illinois and seeking unspecified damages, may inspire Trump and his allies to revisit those accusations, even though the flaws in how authorities secured wiretap warrants against Page doesn’t negate revelations from the Russia investigation, which found that the Trump campaign welcomed but did not criminally participate in Moscow’s election interference and that Trump himself sought to kneecap Robert Mueller’s probe. The case represents Page’s first legal action in relation to the FISA warrants since a previous suit, in 2018, was thrown out by a Oklahoma court on the grounds that it did not have jurisdiction over the case. Page’s attorney suggested that additional suits would follow. “This is a first step to ensure that the full extent of the FISA abuse that has occurred during the last few years is exposed and remedied,” Pierce said.
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