By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
A classified, highly disputed Republican memo reveals that the Justice Department under President Trump approved continued surveillance last spring of Trump campaign associate Carter Page because investigators suspected he was a Russian agent.
The New York Times, citing three people familiar with the document, reports that the memo portrays the Russia investigation as “tainted from the start” because it relies in part on research by former British spy Christopher Steele, who had been financed by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
The memo, which Democrats claim contains “cherry-picked facts” to craft a misleading narrative, takes aim at Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed special counsel Robert Mueller to investigate possible obstruction of justice by the president and collusion with Russian to undermine the 2016 presidential election. Last summer, the president considered firing Rosenstein, who is overseeing the investigation that so far has led to indictments against four Trump associates.
According to the memo, Rosenstein extended the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) order on Page, a former Moscow-based investment banker whom a Russia spy had tried to recruit, according to a 2013 investigation. Carter served as a Trump foreign police adviser until September 2016.
In the memo, Republicans alleges that senior intelligence officials abused the surveillance program to target Trump’s campaign as part of a political bias and failed to properly vet the application.
“The president has been clear publicly and privately that he wants absolute transparency throughout this process,” White House spokesman, Hogan Gidley, said in a statement. “Based on numerous news reports, top officials at the F.B.I. have engaged in conduct that shows bias against President Trump and bias for Hillary Clinton. While President Trump has the utmost respect and support for the rank-and-file members of the F.B.I., the anti-Trump bias at the top levels that appear to have existed is troubling.”
The Justice Department declined to comment on this report.
