Last August, U.S. officials obtained a FISA warrant to wiretap the communications of Carter Page, a former foreign policy adviser to President Donald Trump. The FBI suspected Page was working as a spy on behalf of Russia, a U.S. official told the New York Times. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the wiretap was granted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, after the Justice Department provided evidence that Page might have been a mole for the Kremlin.

Previously a Moscow-based investment banker, Page is one of Trump’s former advisers many suspect FBI Director James Comey was alluding to when he said in a recent House hearing that the bureau was investigating the “nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts.” Comey said the FBI had been probing the matter since July.

Securing a FISA warrant is no easy feat, and requires solid evidence to justify a wiretap. Usually, FISA warrants are used to surveil the communications of foreign agents, such as Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. For Page, the FBI pointed to two pieces of information that vindicated its suspicions about him acting as a Russian agent:

1. In 2013, Page met with a Russian man who U.S. intelligence officials identified as an undercover Russian intelligence officer. During the meeting with Page, the man was posing as a Russian businessman. Page reportedly provided the Russian agent, Victor Podobnyy, with documents pertaining to Page’s New York-based investment firm, Global Energy Capital.
2. In July 2016, after the Republican National Convention and before he left Trump’s campaign, Page traveled to Moscow to give a speech at the New Economic School. Page delivered a scathing harangue of U.S. policies toward Russia, including the sanctions imposed for its annexation of Crimea and its aggression in Ukraine.

According to the government official, the 90-day FISA warrant has been renewed more than once. Obtaining a FISA warrant is an intentionally complicated process. One of three top senior officials at the Justice Department must approve the request before it can go before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Along with Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort, Page is one of Trump’s former aides whose communications with Russia have caught the attention of U.S. intelligence officials. Page, according to Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks, had an “informal” role, and never had a private meeting with Trump. There has been no criminal charges brought against Page, and even months-long FBI investigations do not necessarily lead to charges.

For his part, Page has denied any wrongdoing. In an email to the Times on Tuesday, he said it “will be interesting to see what comes out when the unjustified basis of those FISA requests are more fully disclosed over time.” And on Wednesday, in an interview with CNN, he said, when asked if he has acted as a Russian agent: “Let’s not jump to any conclusions, and until there’s full evidence and a full investigation has been done, we just don’t know.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) said, in a press conference on Capitol Hill and later at the White House on Wednesday, that President Donald Trump and his associates were compromised during the campaign as the result of surveillance in Trump Tower. Trump’s associates, Nunes said, were “unmasked” by the surveillance, and some of Trump’s communications were swept up in “incidental collection” as a result. He cited a classified report as the source of his claims, but did not divulge who provided him with the information.

“I don’t want to get too much into the details, but these were intelligence reports, and it brings up a lot of concern about whether things were properly minimized or not,” Nunes said. “What I have read bothers me, and I think it should bother the president himself and his team, because I think some of it seems to be inappropriate.”

This behavior by Nunes, head of the House investigation into Trump and his associates’ communications with Russia, brings up a host of questions: Can Nunes continue to lead an impartial investigation? Did he reveal any new information? What is “unmasking” and “incidental collection”? And was the surveillance that Nunes described lawful?

Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) said that Nunes apologized Thursday morning for going straight to the White House with his concerns, and circumventing the House Intelligence Committee. But many House Democrats, including Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the ranking Democrat on the intelligence committee, said Nunes could no longer be expected to be an impartial voice in the Trump-Russia investigation.

The White House, in contrast, warmly embraced Nunes’s direct approach. “I very much appreciated the fact that they found what they found,” Trump said, adding that he feels “somewhat” vindicated for his accusations that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower during the campaign. Sean Spicer, the White House spokesman, said Nunes provided “startling information.” But what exactly did Nunes reveal that was previously unknown?

The FBI and the Senate Intelligence Committee, which are leading separate investigations into Russia’s communications with Trump and his associates, both concluded there is no evidence Trump Tower was wiretapped–by Obama or any other intelligence agency. And Nunes on Wednesday admitted as much. It is the “unmasking” of Trump’s associates that has Nunes concerned. Americans are often surveilled for communicating with foreign actors that might concern the U.S. But their identities are commonly masked, hidden from U.S. authorities who are tracking them.

Not so in the case of Trump’s associates, Nunes claims. He said the identity of those who were surveilled–Nunes said it was multiple associates, Schiff said it was one–was revealed to U.S. officials. Given the unusual nature of the investigation into people close to Trump who had ties to Russia (a common target of U.S. surveillance), it is hardly surprising that U.S. officials might not have conducted business as usual.

And according to Schiff, “unmasking” in and of itself “does not indicate that there was any flaw in the procedures followed by the intelligence agencies,” and “is fully appropriate when it is necessary to understand the context of collected foreign intelligence information.”

The “incidental collection” Nunes mentioned refers to Trump’s communications that might have been collected due to the surveillance of his associates. Again, there is nothing illegal about that. As to who might have been the subject of the surveillance, Nunes provided no specifics. Here’s a good bet though: Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman who resigned last August after his name was included on a ledger of cash payments made by Ukraine’s former pro-Russia President Viktor Yanukovych.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, lobbied on behalf of a Russian oligarch with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to an Associated Press investigation, Manafort began discussing a strategy, as early as June 2005, with Russian aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska to push his business interests in Russia and other former Soviet republics.

One of Deripaska’s goals, as indicated by memos obtained by the AP, was to support Putin’s government and to undermine anti-Putin politicians in Russia and former Soviet republics like Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Georgia. 

In a 2005 memo obtained by the AP, Manafort wrote to Deripaska, whose net worth is $5.1 billion according to Forbes, and described a “great service that can re-focus, both internally and externally, the policies of the Putin government.” Manafort added: “We are now of the belief that this model can greatly benefit the Putin Government if employed at the correct levels with the appropriate commitment to success.”

Manafort’s “great service” involved influencing politics, business exchanges, and news not only in Russia and former Soviet states, but in the U.S. as well, according to the AP. Manafort and Deripaska signed a contract to carry out the lobbying efforts in 2006. Deripaska paid Manafort $10 million per year for his efforts, and the two maintained a business relationship until at least 2009.

Last August, Trump asked Manafort to resign as his campaign chairman after reports came out that he lobbied on behalf of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who had a cozy relationship with Putin. On Monday, FBI Director James Comey revealed that a number of Trump’s campaign associates are under investigation for their Russian ties. And though Comey declined to explicitly name Manafort as one of the associates in question, it is highly likely he is a subject of the probe.

After Comey testified in front of the House Intelligence Committee on Monday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Manafort “played a very limited role for a very limited amount of time” for the Trump campaign. In fact, Manafort was campaign chairman from March to August, a crucial six-month stretch of the campaign.

Manafort denied any malfeasance in a statement to the AP: “I worked with Oleg Deripaska almost a decade ago representing him on business and personal matters in countries where he had investments,” Manafort said. “My work for Mr. Deripaska did not involve representing Russia’s political interests.”

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle expressed concern over the AP’s report. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said Manafort’s lobbying could amount to “basically taking money to stop the spread of democracy, and that would be very disturbing to me.” Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said the AP report “undermines the groundless assertions that the administration has been making that there are no ties between President Trump and Russia.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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The resignation of Michael Flynn as National Security Adviser and the subsequent revelations that Trump aides communicated with Russia during the campaign have raised a lot of questions in Washington. Clearly some sort of relationship exists between Russia and Trump–or at least his orbit of advisers and aides. But how deep does it go? How nefarious does it get? And, perhaps most importantly, what will happen next?

For one, the FBI is continuing to review the communications between Flynn and Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak. Flynn was pressured to resign after he misled Vice President Mike Pence about the content of his calls with Kislyak (they talked about U.S. sanctions, but Flynn told Pence they did not).

It is unclear if Trump, or any other top administration officials, directed Flynn to discuss the sanctions with Kislyak, or if Flynn acted of his own accord. But Trump, for one, is not happy about the leaks coming out of his administration:

The real scandal here is that classified information is illegally given out by “intelligence” like candy. Very un-American!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 15, 2017

On Tuesday, top Senate Republicans hinted that they would be calling for an investigation into the relationship between Trump, his aides, and Russia. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said a probe is “highly likely.” Two members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) and Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), also called for an investigation.

“We are aggressively going to continue the oversight responsibilities of the committee as it relates to not only the Russian involvement in the 2016 election, but again any contacts by any campaign individuals that might have happened with Russian government officials,” Burr said on Tuesday.

Republican Senators John Cornyn (TX) and Roy Blunt (MO) echoed the call for a Senate investigation, which would likely include a subpoena for Flynn to testify. Republicans in the House, however, struck a different tone Tuesday.

“I’ll leave it up to the administration to describe the circumstances surrounding what brought [Flynn] to this point,” said Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI).

Ryan did not call for a House Intelligence Committee investigation.

The decision to launch a House investigation into the Russia-Trump Administration relationship is unilaterally controlled by one man: Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), the House Intelligence Committee Chairman. In contrast with many of his Republican colleagues, his counterparts in the Senate, and Democrats, Nunes sees a bigger problem than Trump’s potential Russia ties.

“I expect for the FBI to tell me what is going on, and they better have a good answer,” Nunes said on Tuesday, referring to the FBI’s recording Flynn’s call with Kislyak. “The big problem I see here is that you have an American citizen who had his phone calls recorded.”

In other words, Nunes likely won’t be launching a House probe any time soon.

The opaque, yet unmistakable, ties between Trump and Russia first came to light in the summer of 2016. In July, he flippantly implored Russia to dig deeper into Hillary Clinton’s emails. In August, his campaign manager at the time, Paul Manafort, quit amid reports about his past business dealings with Ukrainian government officials who were backed by the Kremlin. And in the waning months following Trump’s election win, U.S. intelligence officials concluded that Russia–perhaps directed by President Vladimir Putin–interfered in the election with the goal of netting Trump a victory.

Then, just over a week before Inauguration Day, reports of a salacious dossier on Trump compiled by a former British intelligence officer began to leak. The dossier claimed that Trump and his campaign colluded with Russian officials during the campaign in their hacking of Democratic operatives’ emails.

While U.S. intelligence officials have made some progress on corroborating the claims in the dossier, nothing too incriminating has been confirmed yet. They are continuing to probe the dossier, as well as Flynn’s contacts with the Russian ambassador.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), never one to mince words, called Russian interference in the U.S. “very disturbing” in an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Wednesday. He added: “Any Trump person who was working with the Russians in an unacceptable way also needs to pay a price.”

Stay tuned to find out what happens next.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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With just over two weeks until Americans vote for their next president, Donald Trump may have lost a key member of his campaign: National Political Director Jim Murphy said he will “take a step back from the campaign.” In a short statement to Politico, he attributed his decision to “personal reasons” while making clear that he has “not resigned.” Campaign aides said Murphy has been absent in recent days.

Internal clashes and international scandals have rocked Trump’s campaign since its inception. Murphy joined Trump’s campaign in June, succeeding Rick Wiley, who clashed with Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s first campaign manager, a position now held by Kellyanne Conway. Paul Manafort resigned as campaign chairman in August following intense pressure surrounding his lobbying work for the pro-Russian former president of Ukraine.

A career lobbyist, Murphy was a key waypoint between Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee. He also helped build field operations in battleground states, and oversaw the floor operations at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July. It’s quite late in the game for such a vital piece of a presidential campaign to “step back,” especially considering Trump’s recent self-inflicted wounds and falling poll numbers.

Murphy’s stint with the Trump campaign–which, if he is on hiatus, might still be ongoing–is not his first foray into politics. In 1988, he worked on Bob Dole’s unsuccessful White House bid. Murphy and Manafort worked together for Dole’s 1996 presidential campaign as well.

There are 18 days until Election Day, and Trump has seemingly lost his national political director. How this affects the logistics of his campaign’s final push is unclear at this point, but certainly worth keeping an eye on.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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The lobbying firm run by Donald Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort conducted business in support of Ukraine’s pro-Russia political party that governed the country from 2012 to 2014. According to emails the Associated Press obtained, Manafort’s firm aimed to sway American public opinion in favor of Viktor Yanukovych’s government, through positive coverage in U.S. media outlets such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. The firm also tried to undermine American sympathy for opposition politician and democracy advocate Yulia Tymoshenko who was imprisoned by Yanukovych’s government.

As Law Street Media reported earlier this week, Paul Manafort was mentioned in a list of names that received big cash payments from the Ukrainian government, with $12.7 million earmarked for him. Rick Gates, now his deputy, was at the time working for Manafort’s political consulting firm, DMP International LLC. He directed the work of two Washington-based lobbying firms, Mercury LLC and Podesta Group Inc., in trying to bring about a positive impression of the Ukrainian government.

The emails show that Gates personally scheduled appointments between the Ukrainian foreign minister and American politicians. The foreign minister, according to the emails, did not want to use his own embassy in the U.S. for any coordination of meetings. Gates was also assigned the task of undermining support for Yulia Tymoshenko, even as the U.S. pressured the Ukraine government to free her.

Trump said Tuesday night that if he becomes president he would make sure officials would not be allowed to accept speaking fees from “corporations with a registered lobbyist for five years after leaving office or from any entity tied to a foreign government,” a proposal that seemed to be directed at the Clintons. But now it is clear that two of Trump’s own campaign advisers failed to report their activities as foreign agents, as they are required to by federal law. Not only that, but they specifically denied ever having been involved in such work, a felony that is punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

Exactly what role Manafort played in the lobbying operations is not clear, other than being the boss of Gates at DMP International. Both he and Gates have previously said that they did not conduct any direct lobbying, and only introduced the two Washington-based firms to a European non-profit which then took over. But the content of the emails seem to contradict that.

Manafort and Gates have been in charge of Trump’s campaign since the spring of 2015, which makes their earlier lobbying activities especially noteworthy. This brings a lot of questions to the surface and coincides with criticism of Trump’s relationship to Russia.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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In early 2014, protestors in Ukraine ransacked and overran the headquarters of the ruling government, the Party of Regions. Ukraine’s president at the time, Viktor Yanukovych, fled to Russia, and his former residence has since been turned into a museum. On the third floor of that palace, a 400-page “black ledger” was found, containing hundreds of cash favors from Yanukovych to election officials and others. A recent New York Times report found Paul Manafort–Donald Trump’s campaign chairman–listed as a recipient 22 times throughout the ledger. Yanukovych, who has deep ties to Russia and its president Vladimir Putin, was a client of Manafort’s international political consulting firm.

The investigation into the ledger is spearheaded by Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), an arm of the government that was elected after Yanukovych fell from power. Throughout the “black ledger,” the name “Manafort” appears 22 times and is linked to a total of $12.7 million over five years, from 2007 to 2012. In a statement, NABU acknowledged that this fact does not necessarily mean Manafort accepted off-the-books cash payouts from Yanukovych. The statement said: “the presence of P. Manafort’s name in the list does not mean that he actually got the money, because the signatures that appear in the column of recipients could belong to other people.”

While reading the Manafort Russian payment story, keep in mind we have no idea if @realDonaldTrump is getting paid by Russians. #taxreturns

— stuart stevens (@stuartpstevens) August 15, 2016

In March, the Trump campaign hired Manafort to help steer its efforts to court delegates. But the veteran Republican strategist’s ties to Yanukovych–and by proxy, Russia–have been media fodder since Trump hired him. On Monday, Hillary Clinton’s campaign jumped on the possibility that Manafort was in the pockets of Ukraine or Putin. “Donald Trump has a responsibility to disclose campaign chair Paul Manafort’s and all other campaign employees’ and advisors’ ties to Russian or pro-Kremlin entities,” said a statement by Clinton’s Campaign Manager Robby Mook.

Manafort denied any notion that he accepted cash payments from the Yanukovych government. In a statement, he called the claims “unfounded, silly and nonsensical.” He added that all payments received during his time assisting Yanukovych were disbursed throughout his entire local and international staff, including his polling and research, and election and television advertising teams.

How Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign chief, benefited from powerful interests friendly to Vladimir Putin https://t.co/sTnyyIK7Dx

— The New York Times (@nytimes) August 15, 2016

According to The New York Times’ article, investigators from NABU–a U.S. and European Union funded investigative unit that shares its findings with the FBI–said the “black ledger” payments were part of an illegal off-the-books system. “It would have to be clear to any reasonable person that the Yanukovych clan, when it came to power, was engaged in corruption,” a former senior official with Ukraine’s general prosecutor’s office told the Times.

It remains to be seen whether these revelations are enough for Trump to cut ties with Manafort. But Manafort’s prominence in the ledger is reason for concern, especially in light of Trump’s soft–and at times reverent–attitude toward Russia.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Early on in his quest to preside over the most powerful nation on earth, questions were raised about Donald Trump’s temperament. The businessman swore he had a “presidential” side to him that would reveal itself as the race moved on. On Monday, Paul Manafort, Trump’s newly hired delegate guru, experienced the difficulties of trying to summon his new boss’s more polished side.

According to Politico, Trump is uncomfortable with Manafort’s recent directives aimed at cleaning up his speaking style, even urging him to use a teleprompter in lieu of his more “wing it” inclinations.

A few weeks ago, Trump recruited Manafort in an effort to prevent a contested convention in Cleveland in July, and if need be, to draw on his years of experience to ensure that the convention goes Trump’s way. Manafort has decades of experience navigating contested conventions, managing Gerald Ford’s efforts in 1976 and Ronald Reagan’s in 1980.

There have been signs of late that Manafort is doing more than managing Trump’s delegate game.

Last week, at a gathering of the Republican National Committee in Florida, Manafort let slip a statement that implied Trump is simply “projecting an image” at the moment:

“The part that he’s been playing is evolving into the part that now you’ve been expecting, but he wasn’t ready for, because he had first to complete the first phase… You’ll start to see more depth of the person, the real person. You’ll see a real different way,” Manafort told AP reporters who attended the gathering at a resort in Hollywood, Florida.

Trump has cautioned Manafort, who he thinks is overstepping his role by urging him to go about things in a more “presidential” manner, something Trump is not quite ready to do.

Trump has been avoiding the Sunday morning talk shows at Manafort’s request (the instances Trump often slips up, Manafort said), though Manafort himself has been making more appearances on television of late. Trump, who relishes screen time and has bragged about his ability to procure free media coverage, is suspicious of Manafort’s recent media time, sources told Politico.

The beneficiary of the latest Trump camp tension: Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager who has been privately dueling with Manafort since he was hired in late March. Just last month Lewandowski was charged with battery after a video implicated him in forcefully grabbing Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields by the wrist at a campaign event in Jupiter, Florida. The charges were dropped and Trump, who was under pressure to relieve his longtime friend of his duties, doubled down and reiterated his support for his campaign manager.

And because of recent tension between Manafort and Trump, it seems Lewandowski will be granted even more sway moving forward. Whether the team can get on the same page as the fight for delegates drags on throughout the summer remains to be seen.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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