I saw the headline for this article on Talking Points Memo a few times before I finally clicked on the link. The reason being that I thought "Well, in the old days, that would've been a massive story... but in the current context, why is the fact that Russia tried to use people like Carter Page to infiltrate Trump's campaign newsworthy? Didn't we already know that? But I found this nugget:
“My assumption throughout the last 26 years I’ve been going there has always been that any Russian person might share information with the Russian government … as I have similarly done with the CIA, the FBI and other government agencies in the past,” Page said.
The dog bites man story is that the Russians were using Page to infiltrate the U.S. The man bites dog story is that if Page is telling the truth (and I don't think he is), the AMERICANS WERE USING PAGE TO INFILTRATE THE RUSSIANS!
The guy seems to be as dumb as a post; it's one thing for him to be an unknowing stooge for one country; but is there any way he's anywhere near how intelligent and how cunning one would need to be to pull that off?
Talk about this or anything else #TrumpRussia related in the comments.
This could be..... mabe that's what they are worried about
ReplyDeleteI’m sure you’ve heard every weird theory about this already. Anyhow, FWIW, here’s my take based on looking at the facts through a different prism. Almost everyone dismisses Page as a fool. Maybe he his. But maybe he isn’t what he seems to be.
ReplyDeleteAfter looking through much material, I believe it’s probable that Carter Page is a US intelligence asset. After being caught up in the 2013 Russian spy case, what would most people do? Go back to Moscow and keep on trying to cultivate contacts? It doesn’t pass the sniff test.
Steele probably tripped over a part of a US intelligence job, which was trying to plant Page. They also had Page join the Trump team to see if Moscow was going to use Page in Trump’s campaign. They may have already had reasons for being suspicious of the Trump/Russian connection, and hence needed someone inside the campaign. Given the sensitivity of the Page case, FBI simply couldn’t risk telling Steele what was going on.
If you read between the lines of the memo, this is why Trump’s team is so pissed at FBI and other intel agencies. They can’t come out and say Page was an intel asset, because this would be the greatest intel scandal, ever, and also be an unmasking of an intel asset. It would also open the whole can of worms on why it was thought necessary to keep tabs on the Trump campaign in the first place.
When Nunes was running around the WH in March, it may have been because that’s when they found out Page’s true role as an IC asset.
Page’s testimony at the House Intel committee on his Russian contacts during his trips there in Dec 2016 don’t appear to be the kind of on going proof providing probable cause for a FISA warrant. Sure, there might have been a lot more info in the FISA warrants giving probable cause that we don’t know, but on the face of what we do know from Page’s testimony, it doesn’t look strong. The FISA warrants on Page however do provide a nice cover for him to mask his real job, which is to be a bait for the Russians.
Anyhow, I’ve just tried to look at this Carter Page situation from a very different perspective - not because I’m a conspiracy theorist, but because there seems too many details that don’t make sense running with the current Pro and anti-Trump narratives.