discussion of a pending sale of Rosneft stock (a cut of which sale, Steele’s dossier alleges, is offered to Trump via Page).228 After his covert meetings with Dvorkovich and Baranov, Page excitedly emails the Trump campaign, promising several officials “a readout soon regarding some incredible insights and outreach I’ve received from a few Russian legislators and senior members of the Presidential Administration here.”229 The next day, Page emails Sam Clovis—one of the men who hired him, but not a member of the national security advisory committee he serves on—to tell him the details of his meetings with both Dvorkovich and Baranov, including the former’s “strong support for Mr. Trump and a desire to work together toward devising better solutions in response to the vast range of current international problems.” Page adds, significantly, that Dvorkovich’s view is “widely held at all levels of [the Russian] government.”230
Despite the volume of details it compiles about Page’s July 2016 trip to Moscow, the Mueller Report will conclude that it did not receive the full truth from Page, noting that, as far as “who Page may have met or communicated with in Moscow,” his “activities … were not fully explained.”231 Though J. D. Gordon, Page’s peer on the Trump campaign’s national security advisory committee, will not disclose to the special counsel any interactions between Page and Sergey Kislyak at the Republican National Convention following Page’s return from Moscow, Page will after the convention tell campaign officials that he did indeed speak with Kislyak in Cleveland and that the ambassador was “very worried about candidate Clinton’s world views.”232
The special counsel’s office will note that some part of the information it was unable to obtain about Page’s activities in Moscow may have been reported by Yahoo News in September 2016, when the digital media outlet reveals, as summarized by the Mueller Report, that “U.S. intelligence officials [are] investigating whether … [Page] opened private communications with senior Russian officials to discuss U.S. sanctions policy under a possible Trump Administration.”233 If Page indeed did so, and at candidate Trump’s direction or with his knowledge, Trump’s request for Russian hackers to attack Clinton’s email servers on July 27, 2016—less than three weeks after Page returns from Moscow—would likely be regarded as a federal felony under the aiding and abetting statute, 18 U.S.C. § 2.234 As to whether this occurred, the special counsel’s office cannot say—in substantial part because of evidence and testimony withheld from it by members of the Trump campaign.
When Page returns to Moscow in December 2016, it is months after the Trump campaign says it has severed ties with him. While there, however, Page will “give individuals in Russia the impression that he [has] maintained his connections to President-Elect Trump.”235 Indeed, on December 8, 2016, Kremlin agent Konstantin Kilimnik will write to Manafort to say that “Carter Page is in Moscow today, sending messages he is authorized to talk to Russia on behalf of [Donald Trump] on a range of issues of mutual interest, including Ukraine.”236 During his second 2016 trip to Moscow, Page again meets with Andrey Baranov of Rosneft, and again discusses with him Putin lieutenant Igor Sechin; Page also dines with Russian deputy prime minister Arkady Dvorkovich, the same Kremlin official he had met with in July.237 According to the Mueller Report, Page and Dvorkovich discuss “connecting” the Kremlin with Trump’s presidential transition team so that the two parties can discuss future “cooperation.”238
In 2016 and 2017, the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court will four times find probable cause to believe that Page is an agent of the Kremlin.239
ANNOTATIONS
Fabrizio is not a solo operator upon his hire by his longtime associates Manafort and Gates in May 2016. In fact, he works for Arthur J. Finkelstein and Associates, a consultancy run by controversial right-wing political consultants Arthur Finkelstein and George Birnbaum.
Finkelstein is the developer of a concept in elections called “rejectionist voting”: the idea that to win elections a politician should “demonize the enemy so much that even the laziest of voters would want to get out and vote, just to reject them.”240 Finkelstein for years advises his politician clients “not to talk about themselves, but instead to focus their campaigning on destroying their opponents,” even if it means polling prospective voters to see if they might cast an anti-Semitic vote against a Jewish candidate—as Finkelstein did in the 1980s.241 BuzzFeed News implies that Finkelstein, who died in 2017, may well have originated the phrase “Make America Great Again,” as the slogan appeared in a 1980 Reagan