Over the weekend, the FBI released a set of documents, previously seen by congressmen but unavailable to the public, concerning the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants issued for surveillance of Carter Page. Republican Congressman Devin Nunes had claimed that these documents showed that the Christopher Steele dossier was a key element in obtaining a FISA warrant. Donald Trump has called the warrant “illegal” and claimed that the investigation into Page was just an excuse to “spy on his campaign.” Since the documents release, both Nunes and Trump have behaved as if the actual document matched those statements.
On the other hand, Democrats who had seen the documents had simple message: Nunes was lying. The documents show good cause for an investigation into Page’s actions, the surveillance of the Trump advisor is only a continuation of previous FISA warrants, and the memos prepared by Christopher Steele are only one small part of the overall application.
And on Tuesday, a new voice spoke out in favor of the idea that the documents show exactly what Democrats have said all along. As CNN reports, Republican Senator Richard Burr, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee and heads the Senate investigation into the Trump campaign’s connections to Russia, didn’t quite call Trump and Nunes liars … but he came very close.
Burr: I don't think I ever expressed that I thought the FISA application came up short. There (were) sound reasons as to why judges issued the FISA.
So … what is actually in the documents released on Saturday? Here’s your definitive guide to the documents and their contents, suitable for pushing at anyone still pretending that the these papers show anything other than Carter Page was a Russian collaborator, Devin Nunes is a lying hack, and Donald Trump … is probably both.
What is in the released documents?
The released document is actually a set of documents that stretch from the campaign period, through the transition, and into Trump’s first year in office.
October 2016
- Application to the FISA court (66 pages)
- Approval of the FISA warrant (17 pages)
January 2017
- Application to the FISA court (79 pages)
- Approval of the FISA warrant (19 pages)
April 2017
- Application to the FISA court (91 pages)
- Approval of the FISA warrant (19 pages)
June 2017
- Application to the FISA court (101 pages)
- Approval of the FISA warrant (20 pages)
The page count alone tells a part of the story—with each application, more evidence was presented as to why the court should permit a level of surveillance for Page not usually allowed in working with US citizens. But even the first of these documents make it clear that both Trump and Nunes are not just lying, but distorting the process and the evidence in a way that damages not just the investigation around Donald Trump, but the ability of the government to fairly conduct such investigations at all.
Carter Page is “an agent of a foreign power”
Each application is structured in the same way, and some information is common between all of the applications. There’s an opening where the person to be surveilled is named, along with the agent making the request. Other than the fact that the agent making the request is a Supervising Special Agent (SSA), there’s not a lot to learn here as much of the information is redacted. And that’s something that’s going to come up a lot going forward … redacted data. There is a lot of it. A lot. Stay tuned for examples.
Next comes the part where Page is named, and this is interesting. Because the way he is identified is “Carter W. Page, a US Person, and an agent of a foreign power.”
That’s … very definitive. This is the very first FISA application made available to the public, and without any other documents with which to make comparisons it’s hard to tell just how common such language might be. However, it still seems significant that Page is identified here as “an agent.” It certainly makes his role seem established. Note that, even though this is the first of the FISA applications for Page included in the release, it is not the first such application. Page was subject to other warrants at least as early as 2014. Those warrants have not been released, so it’s impossible at this point to tell if Page was identified this way in earlier applications.
But in case it seems like a throwaway line above, it is repeated just a few paragraphs later:
The target of this application is the agent of a foreign power.
Page works for the Russian Federation
The applications then make it clear that the foreign power in question is the Russian Federation. Following this is a section putting some technical terms to what makes Russia a “foreign power” under law. Then comes a page and a half of material that is titled “clandestine intelligence activities of the Russian Federation.” However, all of this material is … redacted.
The next visible text indicates that Page worked for the Russian government in carrying out those clandestine intelligence operations. This is followed by a description of just exactly what Page does for the Russians … and that’s where the applications start to differ.
The information from Steele was sourced and explained
In the very first application, there’s mention of Page being the subject of “targeted recruitment” specifically to “undermine and influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election in violation of US criminal law.” If that same sentence appears in a document from Robert Mueller, it will be as part of a charge of conspiracy. Here it’s not an official charge … but the FBI is still saying Page conspired with a foreign power to affect the election. Oh, and Page works for Candidate #1. Because Trump’s name does not appear in the document.
Between a few redacted paragraphs, there’s some general statements about Russia’s desire to alter the outcome of the election. Then the application moves on to the Wikileaks document release, Russia’s denial of involvement, and a sentence that starts “Despite Russia’s denial” followed by the black marker of redaction. What follows is several pages describing Russian efforts in 2016, and in general, to affect or disrupt US elections. A lot of this section is generic, but this part is not:
The FBI believes the Russian government’s efforts are being coordinated with Page and perhaps other individuals associated with Candidate #1’s campaign.
And then … a page of redaction. From this point, the application moves on to background about Page. He has contacts with Russian officials. He lived in Russia from 2004 to 2007. And redaction, redaction, and … there’s discussion of two Russian agents Evgeny Buryakov and Victor Podobny, who apparently made their first appearance in one of those redacted sections and were active in New York in 2015. Their connection to Page is also buried somewhere in the redaction.
In July of 2016, “open source information” demonstrates that Page traveled to Russia to deliver a commencement address at the New Economic School. And … here it is. The next time up is Page’s 2016 trip to Russia, during which he met with two Russian officials. This is the information that was provided from memos provided by Christopher Steele.
When the information is introduced here, Steele gets cited as “Source #1.” In a footnote, Source #1 is described as:
(redacted— presumably this is description of Steele’s past role as a British intelligence officer) and has been an FBI source since (redacted). Source #1’s reporting has been corroborated and used in criminal proceedings and the FBI assesses Source #1 to be reliable. Source #1 has been compensated (redacted) by the FBI and the FBI is unaware of any derogatory information pertaining to Source #1.
Source #1 who now owns a foreign business foreign business/financial intelligence firm, was approached by an identified US person, who indicated to Source #1 that a US-based law firm had hired the identified US person to conduct research regarding Candidate #1’s ties to Russia (the identified US person and Source #1 have a long-standing business relationship). The identified US person hired Source #1 to conduct his research. The identified person never advised Source #1 as to the movitivation behind the research into Candidate #1’s ties to Russia. The FBI speculates that the identified US person was likely looking for information that could be used to discredit Candidate #1’s campaign.
So any claims that the FISA court was unaware of the source of this information were clearly untrue. Steele was identified as a former British agent and a previous FBI source with a good reputation It was made clear that the information he provided was paid for by a person seeking information on Trump and, though Steele did not know, the FBI put forward the idea that the information’s purpose was to discredit Trump.
The judge had every bit of that.
Portions of the information sourced from Steele are redacted, but it appears to detail a meeting between Page and two Russian officials: Igor Diveykin and Igor Sechin. The talk with the two Russians supposedly included lifting Ukraine-related sanctions, and the possibility of preparing a “kompromat” dossier against Hilary Clinton.
At this point, there are more than two pages of redacted material. It’s difficult to tell if this material is connected to anything from Steele, or is new information. When the redaction ends on page 21, the discussion has moved on to a “July 16 News Article” and the Trump campaign’s efforts to alter the GOP concerning Ukraine, and Steele (that is “Source #1) is not cited again until a few pages after this, where Steele is referenced in connection with a “Sep 23 News Article” which would be the article that appeared in Yahoo News on that date. Most of what was taken from the Sept. 23 article and a “Sep 25 News Article” are claims from the campaign about Page’s position (that is, that he didn’t have any).
While a big deal has been made about Steele also being one of the sources of the Yahoo article, most of the information cited from this source isn’t a repeat of what Steele said directly. It is information from members of Trump’s campaign downplaying Page’s role.
And then … six and a half more pages of redacted evidence. So, what we are given is the information that:
- Two pages of information produced by Page himself. The nature of this can’t be discerned, as it’s all redacted.
- Page had lived in Russia and had established contacts with several Russian officials including those related to state-controlled Gazprom.
- Page appears to have had some relationship with Buryakov and Podobny, though the exact nature of that relationship is redacted.
- Page traveled to Russia and gave a speech in July 2016.
- While in Russia, Page met with two Russian officials and discussed how they might create information to harm Hilary Clinton.
Only that last piece of information was sourced from Steele’s information, and both Steele’s position and the circumstances under which he collected his information were well described.
In addition, the evidence section of the application alone contains around nine pages of material that has been completely redacted—more material than is actually still visible. From the structure, it seems unlikely that any additional information in this section was sourced from Steele.
What did the FBI want from the judge?
They’re not telling. Information about the details of the FBI procedures are heavily redacted. The application states that the FBI will “minimize” the scope of their data collection, but how they carried out their surveillance is, not surprisingly, still a secret.
There is a section about what the FBI is looking for, but it’s in fairly broad terms. The FBI is “seeking foreign intelligence information.” It really doesn’t get any more detailed than that.
The remainder of the application—which continues to be heavily redacted—indicates that anything found of a criminal nature may be used in an indictment in addition to the foreign intelligence value of any information collected.
The rest is details
The warrant (all of them) runs for 90 days. Once the evidence has been laid out, there’s not a lot of difference between the various documents, other than some of the names at the end. The first document includes signature lines for: James Comey, John Kerry, Andrew McCabe, Antony Blinken, John Brennan, Ash Carter, James Clapper, Susan Rice, and Stephanie O’ Sullivan. If those names are fresh in your mind, it may be because Donald Trump has put half of them on his “pulling their security for being mean to me” list in the last week.
The newer applications
What makes the new applications longer isn’t entirely new information about Page. Some of it is letters and news articles about Russian interference in the election. Starting with the second application in January 2017, all of the remaining applications reference the combined intelligence agency assessment over Russian involvement.
In the second application, George Papadopoulos’s name also appears in association to Page, and there’s a brief mention of his Russian connections along with the fact that both Page and Papadopoulos were identified as part of the Trump campaign by Trump.
Much of the information on the evidence against Page is the same, and appears to have been more or less copy/pasted from the first application, however there is a big change in how Steele is described. Following the line about how Steele had been compensated, the remainder has all been replaced with a bold-face statement.
In or about October 2016, the FBI suspended its relationship with Source #1 due to Source #1’s unauthorized disclosure of information to the press. Not withstanding the suspension of its relationship with Source #1, the FBI assesses Source #1 to be reliable as previous reporting from Source #1 has been corroborated and used in criminal proceedings. Moreover, the FBI notes that the incident which led to the FBI suspending its relationship with Source #1 occurred after Source #1 provided the reporting that is described herein.
In the following text, an “August New Article” is cited concerning Trump’s statements on Crimea. The Sept. 23 article is still cited, and the remainder of the evidence appears to be identical. The second application, made in January, sneaks in under the wire with the exact same cast of characters on the signature page. It’s worth noting that, even though Steele’s “dossier” had become public knowledge by this point, and the FBI had ended its relationship with Steele, a second judge immediately signed off on a second warrant.
In the third application, there is some additional redacted material in describing Page, but it’s difficult to discern what it would be from its location in the application. There is also a footnote that though Trump has been elected, they’re going to keep on calling him “candidate #1” for consistency … and probably because none of them President Don...” Nope, can’t do it.
Information introducing Steele is worded slightly differently, and he’s cited as a “closed source,” but the information and the description of its reliability is very much the same. The amount of redacted material following Steele’s description of Page’s trip has grown about one page of redactions which, again, is difficult to interpret.
The same set of articles: July, August, Sept. 23, Sept. 25, Sept. 26 are cited, and this time there is an important footnote:
The FBI does not believe that Source #1 directly provided this information to the identified news organization that published the September 23 News Article.
So Republican claims that citing the Sept. 23 article is just using Steele to confirm Steele would seem to contradict the statements of the FBI. A longer footnote describes how how Steele became frustrated by Trump’s attacks in October and spoke out publicly, which the FBI cites as its reason for severing their relationship to Steele.
The additional redacted information has grown significantly in application three, the April 2017 version. But nothing can really be learned about the nature of this information from what is still visible.
The signature page for the April applicaton is Comey, Rex Tillerson, McCabe, Mike Pompeo, James Mattis, Dan Coats, H.R. McMaster, and a couple of blank blanks reflecting offices Trump hadn’t managed to fill.
The final version of the application has … say it with me now: A lot more redacted material. There’s an additional page worth of redacted material in describing events that appear to be connected to Buryakov and Podobny … though it’s still impossible to tell what those events may be. In this final version, there is more information about Steele that is also redacted. Speculating based on the parts that are clear suggests that this may be details about how Steele’s organization came to be hired by the campaign of various Republican candidates and eventually as a sub-contractor to the Clinton Campaign.
The FBI repeats its opinion that Steele is not the source of the Sept. 23 Yahoo article in the final application, and from there to the end of the application, all but a few words are under the black pen with one exception.
That exception describes a letter that Page wrote in February 2017 claiming election fraud by the Clinton campaign. In that letter, Page made claims of “severe election fraud” including “hate crimes” and “suppression of dissent.” In this letter, Page blames the Sept. 23 News Article on the Clinton campaign, and also claims that the media and “certain members of the US Congress” are attacking him on orders of the Clinton campaign.
After that bit of entertainment, it’s smooth, and dark sailing down to a signature page that includes Tillerson, McCabe, John Sullivan, Pompeo, Mattis, Coats, and McMaster.
Conclusion
That’s it. That’s what’s in there.
- Steele’s information only constitutes a fragment of the information—though it’s a larger fragment of what’s unredacted.
- Most of the information used to obtain a warrant against Page is redacted, but is clearly unrelated to Steele, because he is not cited on the pages.
- Steele’s role, relationship to the FBI, and connection to the information is well explained.
- The FBI does not believe that Steele was either the “author of” the Sept. 23 article, as Nunes and others had claimed, nor the direct “western intelligence source” mentioned in the article.
- Despite a changing cast of characters, an expanding range of information and footnotes, and a different judge each time, all of the warrants were approved.
One final note: This has nothing to do with the establishment of the special counsel investigation. Even if the whole application was just “Pee tape!,” it wouldn’t affect the validity of the Mueller investigation.