The left did whatever it could to try to thwart former President Donald Trump. Now one of their pawns ensnared in the scheme is left with no recourse.
A federal judge threw out a lawsuit filed on behalf of Carter Page, the adviser to Trump's 2016 campaign who became the center of the Russia collusion investigation, the Washington Examiner reported. Page sued the FBI and Justice Department in 2020 for wiretapping him based on phony opposition research.
The government obtained a FISA warrant in part because of information contained in the since-debunked Steele dossier. The information was compiled by Fusion GPS, which was paid by the Hillary Clinton campaign, and turned over to the government by one of her attorneys, who failed to disclose his connection to her campaign.
Page sued both the FBI and the Justice Department as well as individual officials. He named former agent Peter Strzok, former FBI director James Comey, and former FBI Lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, who was convicted of doctoring an electronic communication to obtain the wiretap.
Judge Dabney Friedrich ruled that even with clear errors, the legal grounds for Page's $75 million lawsuit did not hold up. "Page alleges that the individual defendants violated §§ 1809(a) and 1810 both by unlawfully engaging in electronic surveillance and using or disclosing the fruits of that surveillance," Friedrich wrote.
"Each defendant claims that Page fails to sufficiently allege that he or she violated the statute," the judge ruled. "The Court finds that the claims are not time-barred but that Page does not state a claim against any of the individual defendants."
Simply put, the judge found that none of the defendants engaged in the surveillance but only authorized it. Despite their best efforts, Page was cleared of any wrongdoing, and the government ultimately failed to prove a link between Trump and the Kremlin.
Spying on a presidential campaign using flimsy evidence is unconscionable. Perhaps Page was not vindicated under this statute, but the facts speak for themselves.
