Former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page says being a government informant doesn’t end well.
Days after former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne identified himself as an FBI informant who got roped into a “deep state” plot, Page said he also struggled with his role in helping the bureau under the Obama administration.
“It’s basically the government is taking control of people’s lives,” he told host Maria Bartiromo on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures.
Page, an American citizen, said he worked with the government for two decades after leaving the Navy active duty in 1998, and claimed he was an informant for the government in a case that led to three indictments in an alleged Russian spy ring in New York in 2015. Page said there were “a lot of problems in that indictment and they really kind of put me out on a limb” and he was only “lightly masked” as “Male 1.”
Page alluded to a government effort to get him to lie in court to help make their case. “It was a long back and forth with them but I told them, I am a man of my word and I’m not going to, you know, provide false testimony like they’ve done,” he said.
The “false testimony” Page said the Justice Department and FBI provided was “very similar” to that given against him in 2016, soon after he parted with the Trump campaign, as they sought a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant and three renewals to wiretap him.
Page became a focus of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russian government, but he was never charged with any wrongdoing.
Last week, Byrne, the longtime CEO of e-commerce retailer Overstock.com, resigned after coming out with claims that he was an FBI informant involved in a “deep state” effort to conduct “political espionage.” The company saw its shares plummet more than 30% after he publicly detailed his involvement in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Page, 48, said he too has suffered financially, claiming the government’s “falsehoods” have cost him millions of dollars.
Byrne told the Washington Examiner he engaged in a sexual relationship with Russian spy Maria Butina at the encouragement of the FBI, but did not rekindle the romantic aspect of their relationship when asked to do so as the Russia investigation progressed. Byrne claimed he was offered a $1 billion “bribe” to keep quiet and has provided information to the Justice Department in its review into whether the DOJ or FBI officials were involved in any wrongdoing in the early stages of the Russia investigation.
Former FBI Director James Comey denied the claims made by Byrne, saying, “the FBI doesn’t work that way.”
