Obama’s State Department Responsible For Carter Page Wiretapping?
Documents released on Saturday related to the wiretapping of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page reveal that information that contributed to the government’s application to monitor Page originated with the State Department under the Obama administration in October 2016.
That detail may be particularly relevant since numerous officials from John Kerry’s State Department have been fingered for playing roles in the distribution – and in one case, possibly also the compilation – of the largely discredited, 35-page anti-Trump dossier which focused in significant part on Page.
Much of the interaction between the State Department and the dossier author took place just prior to the October 2016 date mentioned in the newly released Page documents. Dossier author Christopher Steele, a former British spy, was commissioned to produce the document by the controversial Fusion GPS opposition research firm, which was paid by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
A heavily redacted version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) application along with several renewals were released in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
Most of the more than 400 pages were redacted. The second bullet point in each of the applications reveals that the information of Page’s “status” was first provided to the FBI by the State Department in October 2016.
That section states: “The target of this application is Carter W. Page, a US person, and an agent of a foreign power, described in detail below. The status of the target was determined in or about October 2016 from information provided by the US Department of State.”
The rest of that section is redacted. Unredacted sections in the application do not provide any further clues regarding which information was provided by the State Department.
Kerry’s State Department has been under scrutiny for its ties to the dossier and for its possible role in aiding in the FBI’s contacts with dossier author Steele.
State Department official Jonathan Winer admitted to exchanging documents and information with Steele, and passed the dossier contents to other officials at the State Department. Winer also admitted to receiving information from Clinton associate Sidney Blumenthal that originated with Cody Shearer, a shadowy former tabloid journalist who has long been closely associated with various Clinton scandals. Winer conceded that he passed Shearer’s anti-Trump material to Steele.
Besides Winer, there is Victoria Nuland, a senior official in Kerry’s State Department, who gave the green light for the FBI to first meet with Steele regarding his wild claims about Trump and Russia, according to a recently released book. It was at that meeting that Steele initially reported his dossier charges to the FBI, the book relates.
Israeli Immigrant Baffled By Protests
Asher Shalom, the immigrant owner of a business who employs many immigrants, says he cannot understand why his recently opened café was the target of protests over his support for President Trump and White House immigration policies.
“My life is all with immigrants,” stated Shalom, who was shocked by the anti-Semitic, anti-American rhetoric he says came from protesters outside his café. Recalling protesters calling him racist and a Nazi, Shalom stated, “I don’t know what is the connection to my coffee shop.”
Shalom made these comments in an interview on this reporter’s talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio,” broadcast on New York’s AM 970 The Answer and NewsTalk 990 AM in Philadelphia.
Last week, radical left protesters shouted at patrons and attempted to block the entrance to Asher Cafe & Lounge during its grand opening in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles. Urged on by supporters, Shalom – together with the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce, a bipartisan group that works to empower U.S. businesses – is planning a second grand opening August 8.
A Facebook post by a group calling itself Defend Boyle Heights had demanded protesters show up to last week’s grand opening, claiming Shalom was an “anti-immigrant Trump loving gentryfier! If he hates immigrants so much, he can stay…out of our hood!”
Defend Boyle Heights brands itself as “an anti-gentrification coalition.”
Shalom’s alleged offense was to retweet four tweets by President Trump, including one exclaiming that the U.S. immigration system is “broken,” referring to the flaws in the vetting process.
Besides the café, Shalom is the owner of Asher Fabric Concepts, which he says employs over 70 people, including immigrants from Mexico and Guatemala.
Shalom himself is an immigrant from Israel who says the day he became a U.S. citizen 15 years ago he “cried like a baby. It was so emotional.”
Shalom’s son David, who was at the grand opening last week, said, “The contrast is just so clear in the bigger picture. While these people were berating police officers to their faces for hours and cursing at them, we were welcoming everyone.”
David Shalom continued: “It was very concerning to me as a millennial, as well. Because most of these protesters were millennials. And I am witnessing this growing movement in America of intolerance from the radical left. And it just begs the question of what kind of society am I going to live in?… I think civil discourse on the left is slowly eroding.”