REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin
One-time advisor of U.S. president-elect Donald Trump Carter Page addresses the audience during a presentation in Moscow, Russia, December 12, 2016.
Carter Page issued a lengthy response on Monday to a Senate Intelligence Committee leaders' statement questioning whether he was still willing to cooperate with the panel's investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election."Mr. Page has indicated in correspondence to the Committee that he looks forward to working with us on the matter, and that our cooperation will help resolve what he claims are false allegations," the committee's chairman, Sen. Richard Burr, and ranking Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner, wrote on Friday. "For that to happen, Mr. Page must supply the requested documents to the Committee."
The Senate Intelligence Committee sent a letter to Page on April 28, a copy of which Page provided to Business Insider, asking him to provide extensive information about any contact he had with Russian officials or representatives of Russian business interests since June 2015.
Page, an early foreign-policy adviser to President Donald Trump's campaign, volunteered to be interviewed by the committee in March. But he said Monday that the committee's requests were "groundless," "outrageous," and "would cover redundant, highly irrelevant information collected in further violation of my civil rights given the unjustified FISA warrants which already targeted me last year."
The FBI obtained a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act last summer to monitor Page's communications, The Washington Post reported in April. The bureau is reportedly investigating Page's trips to Moscow and contact with at least one Russian official last year.
Page previously told Business Insider he thought the FISA requests were "unjustified," and he wrote on Monday that the committee's requests for more information about his Russia contacts were "based on literally nothing except lies from corrupt politicians."
"I have seen nothing that leads me to believe that the questions posed on April 28 are based on anything more than the continued false allegations that their regime's associates ginned up last year," Page wrote.
But the government's application for the warrant targeting Page has been renewed more than once, The Post reported, and "included a lengthy declaration that laid out investigators' basis for believing that Page was an agent of the Russian government and knowingly engaged in clandestine intelligence activities on behalf of Moscow."
The Senate also asked Page for information about any financial holdings he had in Russia between June of 2015 and January of 2017. Page's ties to Russia include investments in Russia's state-owned oil giant Gazprom.
"Please note that I purchased 200 American Depository Receipts of PJSC Gazprom in June 2008 for $5,909.00," Page wrote on Monday. "I divested my stake in August 2016 for $798.98 - a net loss of $5,110.02."
Page said he would still cooperate with the committee's investigation "in the form of a future open testimony." But Burr and Warner said in their joint statement on Friday that "the committee will consider its next steps" if Page does not provide the requested materials by listed deadlines.
In any case, Page contended on Monday that he has "remained a principal target of the Clinton/Obama regime's surrogates including those in Congress," referring to former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama.
"As a perceived weaker party, I have also been effectively and falsely characterized as a narcissistic loony tune amidst other far worse false accusations by the Clinton/Obama regime," Page wrote.
He said later that Clinton and Obama had committed "abysmal human rights" violations against him during the 2016 election.
"Finally moving beyond the dark cloud of the civil rights abuses which occurred last year might help encourage capable leaders and essential allies such as Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to again feel safe in visiting the United States," Page wrote.
Duterte's merciless anti-drug campaign has left more than 7,000 people dead since he took office in late June 2016, according to the Filipino news site Rappler. Nearly 3,000 have died at the hands of police. He was invited to the White House earlier this month by Trump.