As Special Counsel Robert Mueller stalks lawyered-up prey inside the Washington, D.C., political labyrinth, a wide-eyed securities broker named Carter Page keeps popping up on television talk shows to protest his innocence.
Page’s role as a foreign policy adviser during President Donald Trump’s campaign was spotlighted by the media after the explosive publication of former British spy Christopher Steele’s “dossier” on the campaign’s connections to Russia. Page has been the subject of two congressional investigations and innumerable press reports and conspiracy theories. He plays a starring role in Senate and House Intelligence Committee investigations that are parsing classified information about Page’s purported investigation is nothing but a “witch hunt.” In interviews, Page portrays himself as unfairly hunted, and, like Trump, just about every time he opens his mouth, the investigative hounds pick up more bloody spoor to chase. It is not inconceivable that Mueller will find something juicy with which to charge Page, perhaps intending to flip him as a witness. Already, Mueller has charged Trump’s erstwhile campaign managers Paul Manafort and Rick Gates with laundering tens of millions of dollars through offshore bank accounts. And Gates, widely described as Manafort’s “right-hand man,” appears to have flipped state’s evidence for the steel-nosed prosecutor. association with Russian intelligence operatives and his role in the Trump campaign. The president proclaims that Mueller’s
The focus of Manafort’s consulting firm was lobbying Congress to favor Russia’s agenda in Eastern Europe. Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin’s allies in Ukraine reportedly paid Manafort to cajole D.C. to remove economic sanctions against Russian oligarchs and the federation’s key businesses – energy and weapons. The Steele dossier portrays Page as Manafort’s “intermediary” in a “conspiracy of cooperation” between the Trump campaign and Russian officials – notably Igor Sechin, head of state-controlled oil firm Rosneft. According to unverified statements in the dossier, in mid-2016, Sechin “was so keen to lift personal and corporate western sanctions imposed on the company, that he offered Page/Trump’s associates the brokerage of up to 19% (privatized) stake in Rosneft in return.” The upcoming sale of Rosneft stock was valued around $11 billion, so even a small brokerage fee could be quite substantial. And an even bigger carrot was implied, since Rosneft was entwined with oil-and-gas giant ExxonMobil (XOM) in Russia, Africa, and North America. According to Steele’s sources, Sechin desired to advance “future bilateral U.S.-Russia energy cooperation” once the sanctions were removed. According to the dossier, “Page had expressed interest and confirmed that were Trump
74 March 2018
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