Carter Page Sues DNC, Fusion-Linked Law Firm Over Bogus Steele Dossier

Former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page on Thursday filed a lawsuit in federal court against the Democratic National Committee, the law firm Perkins Coie, declaring “This is only the first salvo.”

Lawyers for Page filed the suit in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Illinois’ Eastern Division, saying it is the “first of multiple actions in the wake of historic” Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuse. The suit involves funding of bogus Steele dossier, which Obama administration officials and the FBI used in order to secure surveillance warrants from the FISA court.

“This is a first step to ensure that the full extent of the FISA abuse that has occurred during the last few years is exposed and remedied,” attorney John Pierce said Thursday, Fox News reported. “Defendants and those they worked with inside the federal government did not and will not succeed in making America a surveillance state.”

He added: “This is only the first salvo. We will follow the evidence wherever it leads, no matter how high. … The rule of law will prevail.”

Said Fox:

Page first filed a defamation suit on his own against the parties in October 2018 in federal court in Oklahoma, but that suit was dismissed in January 2019 after the judge ruled the court lacked jurisdiction over the case because neither Page nor the DNC had strong enough ties to the state.

Page is now represented by Pierce, the global managing partner of Pierce Bainbridge Beck Price & Hecht LLP. They filed in Illinois because they allege the relationship with the firm behind the dossier, Fusion GPS, was “orchestrated” through law firm Perkins Coie’s Chicago office. The suit also claims the DNC “has a historical pattern” of making Chicago its principal place of business. …

The suit alleges that the DNC, Perkins Coie and partners Marc Elias and Michael Sussman “used false information, misrepresentations and other misconduct to direct the power of the international intelligence apparatus and the media industry against” Page “to further their political agenda.”

The dossier in question was filled with salacious claims about Trump and his associates and has been the subject of fierce controversy ever since its public emergence around the time of President Trump’s inauguration. The document was authored by ex-British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, commissioned by opposition research firm Fusion GPS, and funded by the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign through law firm Perkins Coie.

The Justice Department last week declared two of the four surveillance warrants against former Page invalid, the FISA court said.

That move followed fallout from December’s brutal inspector general report, which found the FBI at fault for a series of misstatements and omissions in FISA court applications to secure secret court warrants to eavesdrop on Page.
“The Justice Department’s concession to the court means the department now believes, at a minimum, the surveillance of Page should have ended after the second warrant expired in early 2017,” CNN reported.

 

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