Carter Page, petroleum industry consultant and former foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump, in New York City on Aug. 21, 2020. (Brendon Fallon/The Epoch Times)
A former Donald Trump campaign adviser on Friday sued the Department of Justice and the lawyer who admitted to falsifying evidence against the adviser, among others.
Carter Page filed the 59-page lawsuit in federal court in Washington, alleging he was surveilled illegally as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into alleged collusion between the campaign and Russian actors.
Former FBI Director James Comey, former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, former FBI agent Peter Strzok, and former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith were among those named as defendants.
Clinesmith pleaded guilty this year to changing an email from the CIA that initially stated Page was an agency asset to say Page was not an asset. The email was used to obtain spy warrants from a secretive court to surveil Page, along with unsubstantiated information from a dossier compiled by ex-British spy Christopher Steele and paid for by the campaign of Trump’s rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Officials later admitted the spying shouldn’t have been carried out.
Page “seeks that accountability and damages against the individuals and agencies who wronged” him, according to the new lawsuit.
Defendants violated Page’s constitutional and other legal rights by unlawfully surveilling him, according to the suit. He was targeted only because he was lawfully associated with Trump’s campaign.
“Page is entitled to relief for Defendants’ unjustified and illegal actions (including violations of federal criminal law), which violated federal statutes enacted to prevent unlawful spying on United States persons, as well as the Constitution,” the suit states.
The FBI told The Epoch Times it doesn’t comment on pending litigation.
The Department of Justice didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The other defendants couldn’t be reached.
Page told The Epoch Times that he supported the intelligence community for decades until they spied on him. “It’s one of those things where justice I think will eventually be served, and we’ll see how it all plays out,” he said.
Comey, whose firing in 2017 triggered Mueller’s investigation, told lawmakers in September that he didn’t know that Page was a CIA asset. He claimed that there is not enough evidence to establish that Page worked for the agency, despite a CIA employee attesting that Page had.
McCabe, who replaced Comey temporarily following the firing, told members of Congress earlier this month that he would not have signed Page’s spy warrants, or Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) applications, if he knew the inaccuracies they contained.
“I was shocked and disappointed at the errors and mistakes that the [Office of Inspector General] found,” he said. “To me, any material misrepresentation or error in a FISA application is unacceptable. Period. The FBI should be held to the standard of scrupulous accuracy that the court demands.”
Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) at the time asked, “Who is responsible for ruining Mr. Carter Page’s life?”
“I think that we are all responsible for the work that went into that FISA. I am certainly responsible as a person in a leadership position with oversight over these matters. I accept that responsibility fully,” McCabe said.
The case is Page v. Comey, 1:20-cv-03460. It was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.