Transcript of Carter Page Testimony Released

A 243-page transcript of Carter Page's testimony to the House Intel Committee has been released by the committee. It can be viewed on DocumentCloud here.

I'm just starting to skim through it myself but a number of outlets have reported on some of the more significant portions. The Politico article provides a rough overview.

Carter Page testimony highlights: Trump aide dismisses Russian interference

Here’s a rough list of their avenues of inquiry:

— Details about Page’s July 2016 trip to Moscow to deliver a speech to the New Economic School, and the Russian officials he interacted while he was there.

— Page’s relationship with senior Trump campaign officials and whether he had colluded, coordinated or conspired with Russians to influence the election in any way.

— His trip to Budapest after the Republican National Convention.

— Page’s communications with Trump campaign officials about a change in the GOP platform regarding Ukraine.

— His decision to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights to avoid turning over documents.

— His interactions with the FBI and special counsel’s office.

— Page’s distrust in the intelligence community’s belief that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election.

— His interactions with fellow campaign adviser George Papadopoulos.

— How Page came to advise the Trump campaign.

— Page’s energy industry business relationships.

The exchange that will probably be reported on the most involves Page's July trip to Moscow and an email he sent campaign officials. (text of transcript from Just Security)

MR. SCHIFF: Dr. Page, Mr. Steele in the dossier makes reference to a meeting that you had with a representative of the Presidential administration. Did you meet with any representatives of the Presidential administration while you were in Moscow in July of last year?
MR. PAGE: Just that brief greeting that I mentioned.
MR. SCHIFF: So the only person you met — you only met with a single person from the Presidential administration and that was Dvorkovich?
MR. PAGE: Yes, sir, again, being very careful of the distinction been met and meeting, yes.
MR. SCHIFF: Did you write in an email to Tera Dahl and J.D. Gordon, on July 8, “On a related front, I’ll send you guys 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”? Did you write that email, Dr. Page
MR. PAGE: I believe I did. And it goes back to the point I mentioned with listening to speeches, listening to particularly Arkadiy Dvorkovich’s speech, right. Again, great insights just like I learned great insights — even though I’ve met — I’ve never met Donald J. Trump in my life, I’ve learned a lot from him, and I got great insights from that, from listening and studying the information that he — that he’s provided in public forums.
That’s — that is the primary, primary source.
MR. SCHIFF: Dr. Page, you’ve testified under oath that you met with no senior officials except for a hello to the person who turns out to be the Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation?
MR. PAGE: Uh-huh
MR. SCHIFF: You’ve also testified that, apart from him, you met no one from the Presidential administration, and yet on July 8, of last year, you wrote in an email to the campaign that you had incredible insights and outreach that you received from Russian legislators and senior members, plural, of the Presidential administration. Were you being honest in your communication with the campaign? Are you being honest in your testimony? Because it doesn’t seem possible for both to be true.
MR. PAGE: There has been — again, great feedback and positive feelings were expressed in public forums and even just reading the newspaper in Russian that there was hope for the future. And it’s very — you know, the way I explain this to people is it’s very similar to then-candidate Barack Obama’s speech in Germany.
If you remember, in 2008, he received a tremendous amount of positive feedback —
MR. SCHIFF: Dr. Page —
MR. PAGE: Yes.
MR. SCHIFF: Dr. Page, I’m referring to Bates stamp [REDACTED] in which you relate that you had received insights and outreach from Russian legislators and senior members of the Presidential administration. What members of the Presidential administration did you meet?
MR. PAGE: No meetings. You know, it’s insights versus outreach. The insights were primarily based on the materials or the ideas that I read in the press, similar to my listening to President Trump in the various speeches that I heard of his.
MR. SCHIFF: What –
MR. PAGE: Outreach, let me put it this way: I think scholars, in general, were also very enthusiastic about trying to end this second cold war that’s been created. And so I think it was sort of a foregone conclusion — it was pretty much understood that people would be happy — if there was interest in terms of having a dialogue, I’m certain that the Russians would be more than willing to do that. That’s what I was expressing, perhaps not in the most careful, cautious — you know, if I had started my personal legal training previously, I probably would have used a different word, frankly speaking.
MR. SCHIFF: Dr. Page, I don’t think you need legal training to be able to distinguish between what you told the public 2 days ago that you essentially only met the man on the street –
MR. PAGE: Yes.
MR. SCHIFF: — and what you have related privately to the Trump campaign, that you had met with Russian legislators and senior members of the Presidential administration.
I yield back.

Another point of interest is that Page identified Ed Cox as the person that out him in touch with the campaign, resulting in an interview with Lewandowski.

Let's see what else interesting is in here?

The term "outreach" seems to be a very important word here.

Very shifty, in my opinion, and would love to see his body language in that exchange.

Reads like he was playing dumb, in my opinion.

Is Carter Page someone who worked with powerful Russians to tilt our fragile election process to Trump's favor?

originally posted by: introvert
The term "outreach" seems to be a very important word here.

Very shifty, in my opinion, and would love to see his body language in that exchange.

Reads like he was playing dumb, in my opinion.

yeah, very fishy. there's only so many ways you can parse outreach in a reasonable, credible way... imo

a reply to: theantediluvian


Is Carter Page the first person whose House Intelligence Committee transcript has been released? Lots of people have testified before this committee.

so.... it appears what people said was correct. There was no collusion!

Carter Page - this is what 'nothing to hide' looks like

unlike other witnesses in the committee’s investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, Page struck a deal to release his interview transcript publicly, and the committee posted it

Clinton and Clinton Aides - this is what 'hiding something' looks like

Bryan Pagliano — the former State Department employee who set up the server — defied a subpoena and failed to appear at the hearing altogether. The other two, engineers at the outside firm that managed Clinton’s server, appeared under subpoena but invoked their Fifth Amendment rights in response to every question.

originally posted by: fiverx313

originally posted by: introvert
The term "outreach" seems to be a very important word here.

Very shifty, in my opinion, and would love to see his body language in that exchange.

Reads like he was playing dumb, in my opinion.

yeah, very fishy. there's only so many ways you can parse outreach in a reasonable, credible way... imo

He says this:

“On a related front, I’ll send you guys 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”?

Then he says this:

I believe I did. And it goes back to the point I mentioned with listening to speeches, listening to particularly Arkadiy Dvorkovich’s speech, right. Again, great insights just like I learned great insights — even though I’ve met — I’ve never met Donald J. Trump in my life, I’ve learned a lot from him, and I got great insights from that, from listening and studying the information that he — that he’s provided in public forums. That’s — that is the primary, primary source.

Then he tries, it appears, to wiggle through those definitions in an idiotic way.

Very odd testimony to say the least.

originally posted by: Agit8dChop
so.... it appears what people said was correct. There was no collusion!

Depends on how you define "outreach".

Carter Page - this is what 'nothing to hide' looks like

unlike other witnesses in the committee’s investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, Page struck a deal to release his interview transcript publicly, and the committee posted it

Clinton and Clinton Aides - this is what 'hiding something' looks like

Bryan Pagliano — the former State Department employee who set up the server — defied a subpoena and failed to appear at the hearing altogether. The other two, engineers at the outside firm that managed Clinton’s server, appeared under subpoena but invoked their Fifth Amendment rights in response to every question.

That does not mean anything of substance.

a reply to: introvert

He talks just like a colleague of mine! "Type-A" personality busy-body.

I bet Page and Papadopoulos talked to each other at a rate of 500 words per minute! (Average person is 150 WPM)

originally posted by: carewemust
a reply to: introvert

He talks just like a colleague of mine! "Type-A" personality busy-body.

I bet Page and Papadopoulos talked to each other at a rate of 500 words per minute! (Average person is 150 WPM)

Or he's full of #.

originally posted by: introvert
Or he's full of #.

that is kind of a sign of lying, overexplaining and adding extra details.

a reply to: theantediluvian

I like how many people in trumps campaign he told about going to russia. And how many of them just plain forgot all about it.

a reply to: introvert

Well he either dramatically oversold his activities in Moscow to Gordon and Dahl or he's lying now. Another interesting bit is when he's asked about Rosneft, Igor Sechin and Andrey Baranov.

Now his assertion is that the Steele Dossier is the source of the claims that he met with sanctioned officials during his Moscow trip (actually, he basically claims the dossier is responsible for every bit of negative attention he's received).

Specifically, this part:

Speaking in July 2016, a Russian source close to Rosneft President, PUTIN close associate and US-sanctioned individual, Igor SECHIN, confided the details of a recent secret meeting between him and visiting Foreign Affairs Advisor to Republican presidential candidate Donald TRUMP, Carter PAGE.

According to SECHIN’s associate, the Rosneft President (CEO) had raised with PAGE the issues of future bilateral energy cooperation and prospects for an associated move to lift Ukraine-related western sanctions against Russia. PAGE had reacted positively to this demarche by SECHIN but had been generally non-committal in response.

I had to do some digging, but I knew that I had read way before October that he'd had secret meetings with Russian officials. In fact, I distinctly remembered it being in Russia-language media at the time. Took me a while but I found one of the links. There was another one from an independent Russian media outlet that claimed that he'd had meetings with officials but I don't believe it named Sechin.

< br />

On NT's question, whether the "private citizen" Page had met with the same "private citizens" from the Kremlin, the government and the Foreign Ministry, the answer was: "No comment "One thing is certain: on Friday at the NES graduation ceremony, Trump adviser will meet with Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich. What else will be "private persons" in the audience - not known

It seems that that Yahoo News's Michael Isikoff was reporting from the dossier in September:

But U.S. officials have since received intelligence reports that during that same three-day trip, Page met with Igor Sechin, a longtime Putin associate and former Russian deputy prime minister who is now the executive chairman of Rosneft, Russian’s leading oil company, a well-placed Western intelligence source tells Yahoo News. That meeting, if confirmed, is viewed as especially problematic by U.S. officials because the Treasury Department in August 2014 named Sechin to a list of Russian officials and businessmen sanctioned over Russia’s “illegitimate and unlawful actions in the Ukraine.” (The Treasury announcement described Sechin as “utterly loyal to Vladimir Putin — a key component to his current standing.” At their alleged meeting, Sechin raised the issue of the lifting of sanctions with Page, the Western intelligence source said.

U.S. intelligence agencies have also received reports that Page met with another top Putin aide while in Moscow — Igor Diveykin. A former Russian security official, Diveykin now serves as deputy chief for internal policy and is believed by U.S. officials to have responsibility for intelligence collected by Russian agencies about the U.S. election, the Western intelligence source said.

Details 3&4 from the dossier memo about Page also mention a meeting with Diveykin. But then... it turns out that while he denies having met with Sechin, he did in fact meet with Andrey Baranov, head of investor relations for Rosneft (of which Sechin is CEO). Now he already knew Baranov from his time in Moscow when Baranov worked at Gazprom.

When asked if hew knew what Baranov's position was at Rosneft, Carter is evasive. Look at page 144.

MR. PAGE: We got in touch, and he told me about this event. I can't recall exactly the method of that communication.

MR. SCHIFF: Well, Mr. Baranov works for Mr. Sechin, does he not?

MR. PAGE: He's part of a he's a part of the team at Rosneft. So, you know, Rosneft is a big company, and there's a lot of people that work for Mr. Sechin, uh-huh.

SCHIFF: And he's the head of all investor relations for Rosneft?

PAGE: I recall that what he told me in -- we caught up again in my second trip in December, and he told me that he had he may have moved up. And I don't recall specifically, but he may have had a promotion internally in some format, one way or another.

But if you go back to page 140, he claims to have been invited to an event by Baranov where he was pitched some standard investor relations stuff. And if you look at reports from when he joined Rosneft, you'll see that Baranov was hired into the position. He wasn't promoted to it.


Rosneft hires Gazprom’s Baranov to head investor relations

If you look at page 173, Schiff is asking him about a related item from the dossier regarding the privatization of 19% of Rosneft. This is the relevant bit from the dossier:

In terms of the substance of their discussion, SECHIN’s associate said that the Rosneft President 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 a 19 per cent (privatised) stake in Rosneft in return. PAGE had expressed interest and confirmed that were TRUMP elected US president, then sanctions on Russia would be lifted.

And here's the first part of questioning by Schiff:

MR. SCHIFF: So he wasn't working at all with Rosneft then when you met him in July?

MR. PAGE: To the best of my knowledge, no. But, again, it's the largest Russian oil company, so there may be some loose affiliation and I'm just, you know --

MR. SCHIFF: And when you met with Mr. Baranov, you met with him in July and you had lunch with him in December. Is that correct?

MR. PAGE: Yes.

MR. SCHIFF: And at either meeting, did you discuss a potential sale of a percentage of Rosneft?

MR. PAGE: There was again, it was in the news in each instance. And it goes back to the point I was telling you earlier about publicly available information. There was talks about -- and I can't remember when exactly, because I don't follow Rosneft. It's not really a major focus of mine.

But there was a deal that was in the works for some time, which I had nothing to do with ever and never pitched and he never pitched to me, but that may -- that definitely -- it definitely came up in the second meeting or in the second -- you know, at the lunch in December, because it was in the news. It was one of the big headlines, that this deal had just occurred, which I had nothing --

MR. SCHIFF: And did you --

MR. PAGE: -- nothing to do with whatsoever.

And, again, it's an investor relations person. He talks about things that are in the market. You know, this is a major market --

MR. SCHIFF: And in July, did you discuss with him the potential sale of a significant percentage of Rosneft?

MR. PAGE: I don't believe so. He may have mentioned it in passing. Can't remember the exact timing of when that became public information. There were definitely rumors of it in the early part of the summer.

originally posted by: introvert

originally posted by: carewemust
a reply to: introvert

He talks just like a colleague of mine! "Type-A" personality busy-body.

I bet Page and Papadopoulos talked to each other at a rate of 500 words per minute! (Average person is 150 WPM)

Or he's full of #.

No doubt.

It seems all these people are full of sh!t and also shady as sh!t.

a reply to: introvert

It may very well be a coincidence. There were definitely rumors about the Rosneft privatizations as early as July. Interestingly though, he's back in Moscow having lunch with his old friend Baranov in December, the day after the deal (December 7th — lunch was December 8th). Google translated from TASS:

The former Trump advisor met with the top manager of Rosneft in Moscow

MOSCOW, December 12. / TASS /. Former adviser to the election headquarters of President-elect Donald Trump, managing partner of Global Energy Capital LLC Carter Page met with the top manager of Rosneft during his visit to Moscow, but not with Igor Sechin himself. This Paige told reporters in Moscow.

"I had the opportunity to meet with one of the top managers of Rosneft. The recent deal on Rosneft, in which the Qatar fund and Glencore were able to participate, is, unfortunately, a good example of how US private companies are limited to a greater extent because of the impact of sanctions, "Paige said, answering the question about whether he met with representatives of Rosneft in Moscow. "I think that in the new era of relations between Russia and the United States, most of all the forces need to be applied to the support of the new US administration, from the point of view of business," Paige noted.

And clearly there he recognizes Baranov as "one of the top managers of Rosneft." I'm wondering if there wasn't some discussion with Page that ended up going nowhere ultimately. Maybe Sechin was there, maybe he wasn't but the meeting with Sechin's minion definitely took place in July which was *not* reported anywhere that I can find.

According to Page, one way or another he and Baranov ended up on the phone and Baranov told him about this "event" where they were watching soccer and talking about Rosneft.

It's not quite clear what "he offered PAGE/TRUMP’s associates the brokerage of up to a 19 per cent (privatised) stake in Rosneft" means to me. It sounds like it could be implying some sort of commission on the deal for Page? That whole Rosneft deal was super shady if you read about it.

Not proof of anything but given all the hype about his visit at the time in the Russian media, I can imagine a scenario where Baranov has him meet at this "event" so that he can pitch some deal face-to-face about sliding Page a cut of this big deal in exchange for using his perceived influence to push for a lifting of sanctions if Trump won.

What I'm getting at here is I wonder if there's a possibility that Page received an illicit payment or was pitched one, in exchange for lobbying.

originally posted by: carewemust
a reply to: theantediluvian


Is Carter Page the first person whose House Intelligence Committee transcript has been released? Lots of people have testified before this committee.

Page doesn't have a lawyer. He's representing himself. That may have something to do with it.

originally posted by: fiverx313

originally posted by: introvert
Or he's full of #.

that is kind of a sign of lying, overexplaining and adding extra details.

Not to mention he contradicts himself mightily in some of the testimony. Sorry I don't have links right now - twitter stuff. Something about feeling safe in Russia in 2016 because he was getting "death threats" due to the dossier being published, except that it was published in January of 2017. His testimony is riddled with head scratchers like that. Bad timelines. Possible perjury issues.

He sounds like he's extremely nervous and kind of ADHD, hopping all over the place. I know I would be nervous in that situation, but if there was ever a time to be calm and prepared, this is it.

a reply to: AboveBoard

"Hints" of the dossier came out before the 2016 election.

(OCT. 31, 2016) A Veteran Spy Has Given the FBI Information Alleging a Russian Operation to Cultivate Donald Trump

The "Journalists" knew.

Any insider Knew.

originally posted by: xuenchen
a reply to: AboveBoard

"Hints" of the dossier came out before the 2016 election.

(OCT. 31, 2016) A Veteran Spy Has Given the FBI Information Alleging a Russian Operation to Cultivate Donald Trump

The "Journalists" knew.

Any insider Knew.

So you are implying that "hints" equaled "death threats to Carter Page?"

Wow. And your proof that those in the know early on we're sending death threats to Carter Page? Proof that he even got death threats at all?

*crickets*

Ah. Innuendo. That seems to be enough these days.

a reply to: AboveBoard

Where did I "imply" anything ?

Assuming things again ?

Very disturbing.