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Russia targeted Trump adviser in bid to infiltrate campaign: report Russia 'targeted Trump adviser in bid to infiltrate campaign'
(about 2 hours later)
Russian operatives tried to infiltrate Donald Trump’s presidential campaign through his advisers, including former foreign policy aide Carter Page, CNN reported on Saturday. Russian operatives sought to infiltrate the Trump campaign using some of the US president’s own advisers, including Carter Page, according to a report by CNN that cited unnamed US officials.
CNN said this emerged through FBI intelligence gathering, which triggered an investigation into any possible coordination between Trump campaign operatives and Russian officials. Page, a former Merrill Lynch banker who Trump referred to as a foreign policy adviser during his presidential race, has emerged as a key figure in several US investigations into possible coordination between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign.
US officials told the news network that it was unclear whether Page, who is being scrutinised as part of a wider probe over Russian efforts to influence the 2016 elections, was aware that Moscow was trying to use him. New allegations that federal investigators have gathered intelligence that suggest Russian operatives may have used Page to try to gain access to the Trump campaign follows a separate report by the Washington Post that Page was being monitored by the FBI last summer because of suspicions about his ties to Russia.
A Russian agent would likely have concealed his or her true role or identity while speaking with Page, who himself has vigorously denied any collusion with Moscow. Page has denied wrongdoing but acknowledged that he might have shared information with Russians. He has insisted that the information was innocuous.
Page gave a speech critical of US policy toward Russia at a top Moscow university in 2016 that caught the FBI’s attention and raised concerns that he was maintaining contact with Russian operatives and being influenced by them. “Nothing I was ever asked to do or no information I was ever asked for is anything beyond you could find on CNN,” Page told the media network on Saturday. “Nothing I ever talked about with any Russian official extends beyond that – publicly available, immaterial information.”
Page was one of several Trump advisers who US and European intelligence revealed had been in touch with Russian officials and other Russian agents frequently and extensively enough to raise suspicions, according to CNN. He also told CNN that he had shared information with “the CIA, the FBI and other government agencies in the past”.
Federal prosecutors said that Page met in 2013 with Victor Podobnyy, who turned out to be a Russian operative living in New York. The FBI thus had Page on its radar for at least four years. Contacted by the Guardian, Page declined to elaborate on the charge that he had previously been in contact with US intelligence agencies and investigators.
By his own admission, the former adviser met with top Russian officials at Rosneft, the Russian state oil firm, as late as last December, shortly before the company announced it was selling a 19.5% stake to Glencore, among other investors.
Page told Russian media at the time that he had the “opportunity to meet with some of the top managers of Rosneft”. He also suggested that the deal, which involved an investment by a Qatar fund, was a good example of how US companies were being kept from pursuing opportunities because of US sanctions against Russia. He denied meeting Rosneft chief Igor Sechin, whom he referred to as “Igor Ivanovich” in one interview.
Among other areas congressional investigators are examining are questions about whether former Trump campaign officials discussed lifting US sanctions in meetings with Russian operatives.
The Guardian reported last week that questions about Page’s views about Russia date back nearly two decades, when he briefly worked at the Eurasia Group, a prominent advisory firm. Ian Bremmer, the president of Eurasia, said Page’s “pro-Kremlin” views were not clear at the time he was interviewed and that it was subsequently determined that he “wasn’t a good fit” at the firm.
In a text on Saturday, Page called the allegation “complete nonsense”.
US officials told CNN that it was still unclear whether Page knew that Russian operatives were using him to gain a foothold into the Trump campaign and that he may have unwittingly been talking to Russian agents.
It is not the first time Page is alleged to have been in contact with Russian operatives. A January 2015 indictment of a Russian spy ring identified Page, under a pseudonym, as a contact of a Russian intelligence operative, Victor Podobnyy. Page confirmed to BuzzFeed that he was Podobnyy’s “Male #1” associate, from whom Podobnyy, operating out of Russia’s UN office, acquired documents about the US energy industry.
“I think he is an idiot and forgot who I am ... He got hooked on Gazprom thinking that if they have a project, he could rise up,” court papers quote Podobnyy as saying about Page.