FBI Lawyer May Have Altered File on Trump Adviser

President says allegation proves his campaign was spied on
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Nov 22, 2019 2:24 PM CST
Allegation Proves Spying, Trump Says
Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser to the 2016 Trump campaign, speaks at the graduation ceremony for the New Economic School in Moscow, Russia.   (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

An FBI lawyer is suspected of altering a document related to surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser, a person familiar with the situation told the AP Friday. President Trump, who has long attacked as a “witch hunt” the FBI's investigation into ties between Russia and his 2016 presidential campaign, immediately touted news reports about the allegations to assert the FBI had tried to "overthrow the presidency." The allegation is part of a Justice Department inspector general investigation into the early days of the FBI's Russia probe, which was ultimately taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller and resulted in charges against six Trump associates and more than two dozen Russians accused of interfering in the election. Inspector General Michael Horowitz is expected to release his report on Dec. 9.

The report is likely to revive debate about the investigation that has shadowed Trump's presidency. It concerns in part the FBI's use of a secret surveillance warrant to monitor the communications of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. "This was spying on my campaign—something that has never been done in the history of our country," Trump told Fox & Friends. The allegation against the lawyer was first reported by CNN. The Washington Post, however, adds a big caveat to the scoop: It says the FBI employee's conduct didn’t alter Horowitz’s finding that the surveillance of Page had a proper basis. "They got my warrant—a fraudulent warrant, I believe—to spy on myself as a way of getting into the Trump campaign," Page said in a Fox interview. FBI Director Chris Wray has told Congress he has no evidence the FBI illegally monitored Trump's campaign.

(More Carter Page stories.)

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