Ex-Trump aide: Surveillance warrants are ‘complete ignorance’ and ‘insanity’

Former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page on Saturday labeled the application for his government surveillance as “complete ignorance and/or insanity.”

“I’m having trouble finding any small bit of this document that rises above complete ignorance and/or insanity,” Page said in a text to The Hill on Saturday, following the release of the documents that allowed for federal surveillance of him.

The Department of Justice released more than 400 pages of documents tied to the surveillance warrants for Page, including the initial application and several renewal applications.

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The documents state that the FBI “believes Page has been the subject of targeted recruitment by the Russian government … to undermine and influence the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election in violation of U.S. criminal law.”

Page has denied that he acted improperly while interacting with Russian officials during the 2016 campaign, telling Fox News last year that he “did nothing that could even be possibly viewed as helping them in any way.”

The surveillance warrants against Page have been at the center of GOP accusations of bias at the Justice Department against President Trump and his campaign.

A memo released by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee in February asserted that senior officials at the FBI and Justice Department (DOJ) abused their authority to spy on Page.

Democrats on the committee released their own memo weeks later, saying the DOJ and FBI were justified in their surveillance of Page.