Carter Page, who was briefly a foreign policy adviser to President Donald Trump during his 2016 Presidential Campaign, confirmed a report that he communicated with a Russian spy. In a statement he released yesterday, Page acknowledged that he made an appearance in a federal espionage case a few years ago, since he communicated with a Russian intelligence agent who the FBI was monitoring. Page's statement only adds another layer that connects people around President Trump and Russia.
What are the details of the case?
In his statement Carter Page said he got involved in the 2015 spy case that the Justice Department was doing.
He said that he helped to assist American prosecutors in a case against undercover Russian agent Evgeny Buryakov. Buryakov was in New York City posing as a bank executive at the Russian development bank, Vnesheconombank. Eventually, Buryakov was found guilty of committing espionage and sentenced to 30 months in prison. Ironically enough, he got released last week and agreed to be deported back to Russia immediately upon release.
In the report on the case from the Justice Department about a Russian spy in New York City, Page got identified as "Male 1" and the FBI interviewed him as part of the investigation into Buryakov and two other Russian agents. There were also wiretapped conversations from 2013 with the Russian spies talking about their efforts to try to recruit "Male 1." Page also met with another Russian agent in 2013, Victor Podobnyy, and he gave him documents about the energy business.
Page insisted that the information he gave was harmless and that it was basic information and publicly available.
Who is Carter Page?
Carter Page is an oil industry consultant, who founded Global Energy Capital and once worked as a Merrill Lynch investment banker in Moscow, Russia. In March 2016, Donald Trump stated that Page was a foreign policy adviser for his presidential campaign.
However, in January 2017 press secretary Sean Spicer stated that then president-elect Trump did not know who Page was. Page was one of Trump's former advisers that got connected to Russia and he has said that he wants to talk to congressional investigators looking into Russia's involvement in the election.
