This episode is part two of several needed to cover Volume I, Section IV of the Mueller Report, which is entitled “Russian Government Links to and Contacts with the Trump Campaign.”
Today’s narration will cover Section A, Part 3, Carter Page, and Part 4, Dimitri Simes and the Center for the National Interest (or CNI), a think tank with expertise in and connections with the Russian Government. These sections relate the Russian contacts of Trump campaign policy advisor, Carter Page, and detail the connections to the Trump campaign--including with then-Senator Jeff Sessions and Trump son-in-law, Jared Kushner--through CNI and its CEO, Dimitri Simes, all during the period of the campaign from September 2015 through election day, November 8, 2016.
Carter Page, if you’ll recall, was the subject of a FISA warrant—FISA an acronym for the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows for surveillance of agents of foreign governments. Trump has repeatedly used this warrant as the basis for his claim that the Obama administration spied on his campaign.
If you’d like more details on this controversial FISA warrant, Phillip Ewing breaks it all down in an article on the NPR website (which also includes a full copy of the redacted document itself). You can find a link to the article on the podcast webpage: www.papertrailmedia.co/podcast.