Did Carter Page Call Devin Nunes From Moscow?
(Spoiler: Yep)
Is Devin Nunes directly on an FBI intercept with Carter Page, receiving instructions for the Trump Transition team directly from Moscow? I believe he must be. Here's the evidence.
Carter Page Spoke to Both the Transition Team and Russian Government
In December of 2016, Carter Page went back to Russia. Trump had won the election, and Devin Nunes, along with Boris Epshteyn, was part of the Transition Team, headed by Vice-President Mike Pence.
Officially, Carter Page was no longer part of Team Trump. But we now know from Rep. Adam Schiff, leader of the Democratic Minority on the House Intelligence Committee, that a FISA warrant had been granted - with Mr. Page as its direct target - on October 21, 2016.
Page made headlines on that trip, not least at Heat Street, the Dow Jones site whose editor I was. Could it be that both he and the Russian government revealed, in real time, their collusion? Masha Froliak reported that Page announced Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State at a press conference hosted by Sputnik - actually hosted by the Russian state - in which he was grossly offensive about Hillary Clinton. More importantly, Tillerson had not yet been announced by Trump as his pick in America. Tillerson was announced on December 13th; but Page announced him on December 12th, the day before.
Furthermore, Page had clearly not received this intelligence on the spur of the moment. He presented, without any ambiguity, Tillerson as Secretary of State using slides that had clearly been drawn up in advance; slides which featured photographs and graphics. These slides will doubtless feature in Bob Mueller's investigation. We illustrated our piece using screengrabs from Russia Today's video of the event. One slide featured an obviously "designed" graphic that was clearly not made by Page himself; with a side-by-side comparison of Hillary Clinton and Rex Tillerson's "achievements" in regard to Russia, the graphic for the Clintons shows them all as Russian dolls, with the largest Russian doll being a figure of Monica Lewinsky. Reviewing the lecture and Froliak's reporting, it is plain in retrospect that not only the graphics, but the text of the slides were provided to Page by Russian actors.
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It was a calculated insult to the United States to announce Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State in Moscow before Trump announced him in America. A cocky, even euphoric Russian media and government had clearly miscalculated dramatically over the strength of the US Constitution, the NATO alliance and the USIC. During this period, Russia was engaging in face to face communication with Trump's team both in Washington and Moscow. (That was partly because of my own reporting, oddly enough. Sources told me much later that as soon as I published the FISA story on both Russian banks' servers, talking to the Trump server, being under a FISA warrant, they ceased to communicate with Alfa Bank in Moscow; Team Trump and Team Putin then needed human contact, believing email to be unsafe).
In early December, Ambassador Kislyak met Flynn, Bannon and Jared Kushner at Trump Tower. At that meeting, Kislyak and Kushner set up the January 11th Erik Prince-Kirill Dimitriev meeting. Kislyak subsequently met with Avi Berkowitz, formerly of the "Trump Data" team, to ask that Kushner meet the Russian banker, Sergei Gorkov, a Russian intelligence and government proxy.
Carter Page then traveled to Moscow, apparently to receive and relay messages - orders, in fact - between Putin's government and Team Trump. And this is not speculation - it is fact, confessed by both sides at the time. Carter Page said:
“I am not directly involved in the transition, but I have talked to various people”
He also said he was in Moscow to meet with "thought leaders". Sadly for both Carter Page and Vladimir Putin, Sputnik, which is an official government entity, said that
thought leaders... may include government officials.
In summary, then, Carter Page in Moscow, in Dec 2016:
Was the target of a FISA warrant, and would have been under surveillance by US intelligence, with any evidence received from intercepting his phone calls and emails admissible in court
Announced Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State the day before Trump did
Used materials obviously prepared in advance to do so, including 'fake news' style graphics
Used materials which, I argue, were prepared for him by Russian intelligence, including a detailed breakdown of Rex Tillerson's interactions with Russia
According to himself, was communicating with the Trump Transition team
According to the Russian government, was meeting with Russian governmental officials
Page Was Accompanied By Jack Kingston of Russia Today
Jack Kingston, the Russia Today pundit, accompanied Carter Page to Russia by design, joining in meetings and discussing sanction repeal - absolutely illegal while Obama was President. Kingston lied that he was a private person, but at the same time admitted he had a role in Trump's campaign:
"I was an active soldier in the foxhole, but not a general deploying troops"
The American Chamber of Commerce in Russia billed Kingston openly as acting as "a senior adviser to President-Elect Donald Trump". In a paragraph all involved will regret, they detailed Kingston's status with the Campaign and Mike Pence. "He participated in the campaign's daily briefings.... his relationship with Team Members is extensive... he served as Senior Adviser to Trump during the campaign"
Jack Kingston served as Senior advisor to President-Elect Donald Trump during the campaign. In this capacity he participated in the campaign's daily briefings and also as an outside surrogate, appearing on TV over 130 times on behalf of the campaign. His relationship with team members is extensive. For example, he has known Newt Gingrich for over 30 years, Kellyanne Conway for over 20 years and served with Mike Pence for 12 years in Congress. He also dealt with other campaign leaders and members of the Trump family.
But Did Page Talk to Devin Nunes?
Both my FISA article of Nov 7th, and Paul Wood's article for the BBC in January 2017, reported that the FISA warrant of October 15th, targeted at two Russian banks, was intended to cover three individuals working with the Trump campaign, plus Mr. Trump himself, although we both acknowledged that the Russian banks were the target. Neither of us named the three individuals at that time. Later, I reported on this blog that the three Trump campaign associates were Page, Manafort and Epshteyn. Wood, myself and the Guardian's Julian Borger all reported that a June application to FISC had failed.
The reason that I, as the journalist who broke the story, did not name the Trump associates was that Mr. Epshteyn was not officially part of the campaign. I described him as a "media surrogate" as distinct from Page and Manafort, both of whom had officially been part of the campaign at one point. However, at Patribotics I was able to report on Epshteyn as a public figure because he then became officially part of the Trump Transition team. (Mr. Epshteyn is, incidentally, the only figure in the Trump Russia affair that I have actually called a 'Russian spy' as opposed to a Russian asset. My sources, multiple Western intelligence sources from more than one nation, state that Epshteyn is an FSB agent. He adamantly denies it.)
Devin Nunes inspired me to write that piece naming the FISA targets. On Dec 11th, the day before Page's Moscow speech, Nunes wrote
Today I was honored to have been named to the executive committee of President-elect Donald Trump's transition team. In this role, I will advise President-elect Trump on the appointments of his Cabinet members and on appointments to other top positions in the new administration.
Indeed. Nunes probably acted as a cut-out: Page is told whom Moscow has picked as Secretary of State, Page calls Devin Nunes from Moscow, and Devin Nunes tells Trump. If I am correct, then this call or calls will be on legally admissible intercepts, gathered under a FISA warrant. Not only will Carter Page be going to jail, Devin Nunes will too.
Nunes notorious press conference in March after his trip to the White House - in which his former counsel Michael Ellis leaked intelligence transcripts to him - appears in retrospect to confirm this theory. Politico reported that Nunes' complaints of "unmasking" were in fact invented. Adam Schiff said:
“In my conversation late this afternoon, the chairman informed me that most of the names in the intercepted communications were in fact masked, but that he could still figure out the probable identity of the parties,” Schiff said.
Mr. Nunes flat panic indicates that he saw a reference to himself in those transcripts. That would mean that he knows that Page - the legal target of a FISA warrant - was recorded, and he is "US Person X" in those transcripts.
In March, the press was confused by the Nunes reference to "incidental collection", assuming that he must be talking about Kislyak intercepts with Mike Flynn. FISA warrants are normally granted on foreign entities; the direct targeting of Carter Page was very unusual, and the press had no idea that Page was under a FISA warrant in December. It should be noted that Nunes said that Trump, too, appears on these transcripts.
Nunes Leaked That the FBI Was Investigating Boris Epshteyn on Fox News
To recap my piece, I chose to reveal that Page, Manafort and Epshteyn were named in the June FISA warrant application because Devin Nunes was revealing evidence on live TV. On March 19th, Nunes said to Fox's Chris Wallace
"If you look at the folks today who are working at the Trump White House, I don't think there's anybody there but one who are under any kind of investigation or surveillance activity"
So Nunes literally broadcast to America that he knew a White House staffer was under investigation and surveillance!
On March 24th, Director Comey arrived at the White House. On March 27th, Boris Epshteyn unceremoniously resigned. Some time after this, I reported exclusively, and events subsequently confirmed, that Devin Nunes had his clearance - access to view TS/SCI materials - stripped, leaving him only with 'Top Secret' access. He was unable to write the nonsense Nunes memo because, as Adam Schiff pointed out, despite being chairman of the House intelligence committee, Nunes is unable to look at the upper Top Secret classification.
I am confident that all Mr. Page's conversations from Moscow are on legal intercepts that Mueller can use in court; and that Devin Nunes is on those intercepts.
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