Another former advisor to Donald Trump‘s campaign has stated emphatically on the record that there is nothing true contained in the now infamous 35 page dossier filled with unsubstantiated allegations that the Trump campaign worked with Russia during the election. He also claims he never received money from the Kremlin to influence Trump’s actions and get sanctions lifted.
ABC News reporter Brian Ross tracked down Carter Page, a man who is mentioned several times in the dossier — reportedly written by a former British spy — as having met with Kremlin officials on several occasions. The dossier was found to contain numerous “obvious errors” by several news outlets, including NBC News.
Page is in an energy executive and has reportedly traveled extensively in Russia as part of his work.
As for the aforementioned dossier, Page said any claim that he met with any Russian government officials as a representative of the Trump campaign or Trump himself is “absolutely ridiculous” and plainly stressed that “[n]ever happened.”
“It would have been an honor to meet Igor Ivanovich [Sechin] — a reported Putin ally and Russian oilman — “but I never had that opportunity,” Page told ABC News in the interview.
He also shot down claims that he was offered money by the Russians to get Trump to loosen Obama’s sanctions placed on Russia after the shoot down of MH-17.
“If I were offered a prize of many billions of dollars, that would be quite an offer,” Page said. “But that was never dropped in my lap, no.”
However, the same ex-advisor claims he remains in contact with some current Trump advisors to this day, despite official White House claims he was released months ago.
Page is potentially an important figure because he was named to the Trump campaign foreign-policy advisory team for a short time early in the campaign. In fact, Trump even mentioned his name in an interview with the Washington Post Editorial Board in March 2016.
However, current Trump advisers have since said that Page had a very small role in the campaign.
For example, current White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters during the transition earlier in January, “Carter Page is an individual whom the President-elect does not know and was put on notice months ago by the campaign.”
Yet, Page seemingly wanted to make it clear that he did have a major role advising Trump’s aides and even suggested that he continues to maintain contact with some of them to this day, saying he still hopes “to help in any way I can” just as he did a year ago when he first volunteered to help the campaign.
LawNewz reached out to the White House press office for comment and will update this report with a response.
[image via screengrab]
