Carter Page Sees ‘So Many Political Motives’ in Comey Interview

Former FBI Director James Comey’s ABC News interview was “laden with so many political motives” that went “beyond any common sense,” former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page said Monday on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle.”

Page’s name was peppered throughout the unverified dossier, alleging collusion between President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russian interests. The FBI used the dossier to obtain court approval for authorizing and then renewing surveillance warrants against Page.

The document was authored by former British spy Christopher Steele and paid for by the Democratic National Committee and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

But during Comey’s first televised interview since his May 2017 firing, the former FBI director admitted to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that he chose not to tell Trump about the dossier’s politicized origins because it “wasn’t necessary for my goal.”

Page told host Laura Ingraham that Comey’s excuse regarding the “dodgy dossier” was “just so laden with so many political motives” that were “so beyond any common sense.”

[lz_ndn video=”33728360″]

During the ABC News interview, Comey noted that the FBI had its eye on Page because the bureau was “trying to figure out, is he in any way coordinating with the Russians, as part of their effort to influence our — our election?”

“We hear the word ‘collusion’ all the time. ‘Collusion’ is not a word that’s familiar to me from my work. The question is, is anybody conspiring or aiding and abetting, helping, the Russians accomplish their goal of interfering in the American election?” Comey continued. “That’s what the counterintelligence investigation was about.”

But Page argued that the adjectives Comey used provided “a perfect description of what the Steele dossier was doing … on behalf of the DNC and the Democratic candidate that year.”

“And again, it’s early. We don’t know the full details. But that basically sums it all up,” Page said of Comey’s quote.

Just before Page’s appearance on “The Ingraham Angle,” Ingraham interviewed three former FBI officials regarding Comey’s interview. Retired FBI agent Bobby Chacon blasted the interview as an “absolute mess” and panned Comey’s upcoming book, “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership,” also as “a mess.”

“It’s a mess. He’s an absolute mess. This book is a mess. It’s hurtful, and it couldn’t be more damaging to the men and women of the FBI,” Chacon said. “It demeans the office of the director to issue a book that talks about the size of the president’s hands and unconfirmed rumors about prostitutes in Moscow.”

Related: Comey Is ‘a Man Without Courage,’ Dershowitz Says

“[Comey] took the low road, and he’s dragging the men and women of the FBI back into this political maelstrom that they don’t deserve to be in,” Chacon continued. “He put them there in the first place, and how he’s dragging them back there again. And it’s unconscionable that he does that.”

Page later told Ingraham that in order for the FBI to restore “the dignity” that Comey besmirched, the bureau must release “all of the FISA warrant applications to get all the right info out there as to what actually happened” during the events leading up to and profoundly affecting the Russia probe.

Solomon Wisenberg, former deputy independent counsel for Kenneth Starr’s Whitewater-Lewinsky investigation of former President Bill Clinton, told Ingraham that Comey’s “whole conduct” during the key investigations into the Trump campaign and Clinton was “just shameful.”

“There’s nothing he can do to rehabilitate himself,” Wisenberg said.

Starr told Ingraham the men and women of the FBI are being “dishonored by Mr. Comey,” his book and his interview circuit. “It’s a very disappointing display,” Starr said.

PoliZette writer Kathryn Blackhurst can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter.