President Trump early Monday blasted the “Fake Dirty Dossier” used in part to obtain surveillance warrants on former campaign aide Carter Page.
“So we now find out that it was indeed the unverified and Fake Dirty Dossier, that was paid for by Crooked Hillary Clinton and the DNC, that was knowingly & falsely submitted to FISA and which was responsible for starting the totally conflicted and discredited Mueller Witch Hunt!” Trump tweeted.
The president in his tweets also quoted Tom Fitton, president of conservative watchdog Judicial Watch, which obtained the documents under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Fitton said the dossier “was classified to cover up misconduct by the FBI and the Justice Department.”
“A disgrace to America. They should drop the discredited Mueller Witch Hunt now!” Trump added.
Materials released by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Saturday revealed that the FBI believed Russian officials tried to recruit Page “to undermine and influence the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.” Page has denied acting inappropriately and told The Hill on Saturday that he believes the majority of the document is “complete ignorance and/or insanity.”
The DOJ documents cite the so-called “Steele dossier,” a compilation of opposition research that alleges ties between the Trump campaign and Russia and details salacious allegations against the president.
The surveillance application shows that the FBI told the court that it believed the person who hired a former British intelligence agent to compile the dossier was seeking information to damage Trump. Officials, however, told the court they found the information to be “credible.” The application was based on information beyond what was included in the dossier.
The document also disclosed the four judges who signed off on the Page surveillance warrant, all of whom were appointed by Republican presidents.
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GOP lawmakers have consistently dismissed the dossier because it was partly funded by former Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
“If the dossier is the reason you issued the warrant, it was a bunch of garbage,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said on Sunday. “The dossier has proven to be a bunch of garbage.”
Trump on Sunday said the Page surveillance documents confirm that officials “misled the courts.”