The Justice Department has settled a lawsuit brought by Carter Page, the former Trump campaign adviser who was a key figure in the federal probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
“No American should ever face covert and unlawful surveillance based on their political view,” a Justice Department spokesman said in a statement Thursday after the deal was revealed in a court filing. “The investigation into Carter Page — a man never charged with a single crime — relied on inherently flawed and uncorroborated information, proving it was a political sham from the get-go.”
Page’s lawsuit alleged he was the victim of illegal surveillance based in part on findings from the DOJ’s inspector general that the warrants used in the probe “lacked probable cause and were ‘unlawfully obtained.’”
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant application that had been used to convince a judge to sign off on the warrant contained “seven significant inaccuracies and omissions” that were never corrected and thus “repeated in all three renewal applications,” the Trump administration said in the court filing.
Page’s suit was dismissed after a federal judge found the statute of limitations on his claims had expired, a finding that was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Page, who had been a foreign policy adviser in Trump’s 2016 campaign, was appealing that ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.
An attorney for Page did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment.
The settlement was revealed in a Supreme Court filing Wednesday by Solicitor General John Sauer, who argued the case against the government should be considered moot as a result of the agreement.
Sauer said he was not taking a position on whether the high court should consider Page’s appeal of his claims against the individual defendants named in the case, which included senior FBI officials at the time of the Russia probe. Those defendants include former Director James Comey and former acting Director Andrew McCabe, who've both been repeatedly criticized by President Donald Trump for their involvement in the investigation.
An attorney for Comey, David N. Kelley, declined comment on the settlement and an attorney for McCabe did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump has repeatedly blasted the Russia investigation as a “hoax” despite findings by federal investigators and a bipartisan Senate report that Russia tried to interfere in the 2016 election in an effort to benefit Trump.
Then-special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, however, did not establish “that that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
Page was not charged in the investigation.
The Justice Department statement alleged Page’s settlement was necessary because the “targeting of American citizens for political purposes constitutes a severe violation of civil liberties. This Department of Justice is committed to dismantling the weaponization of government and today’s settlement represents one of many initiatives to provide justice to those abused by rogue actors.”
The DOJ last month settled a suit brought by Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, over his claims he was politically targeted in the Russia probe. Flynn initially pleaded guilty to charges that he lied to the FBI about conversations he’d had with then Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the transition.
Flynn later withdrew his plea, and Trump pardoned him in 2020.
