Again like Page's experience, this was hardly trading nuclear secrets or doing James Bond work. To do this I had to go through Oleg's slow and methodical assessment process. But to do this I first had to convince him I was worth recruiting. However, unlike Page, my job was to entice and fool the veteran Russian intelligence officer into believing I was willing to spy for him and Russia. Like Podobnyy, Oleg was slow and methodical in building a relationship with me. I was approached by Captain Oleg Kulikov, a member of the Russia's UN Mission, who, like Podobnyy, was also an intelligence officer masquerading as a diplomat. Page's experience with the Russians in the first 6 months of 2013 is eerily similar, but perhaps not surprisingly, to my own. Rather, he continued to court the Russians, even going so far as to travel to Moscow in 2016 for a meeting whose purposes is still a subject of debate. Page was not deterred by his involvement in the escapade. Podobnyy, who had diplomatic immunity, wwas promptly obliged to leave the United States.įor most, an involvement with the SVR and a counterintelligence operation would be a sobering experience - especially in a case where, like for Page, no charges were filed.īut that wasn't the case for Page, who downplayed the 2013 experience as nothing more then sharing "basic immaterial information and publicly available research documents." Whatever Page may have thought of Podobnyy's intentions, in 2015 the FBI brought charges against the Russian, alleging he was not a diplomat but a Russian intelligence officer.įinally, in a rare occurrence, not only were the charges made public, but a conviction and jail time was secured against one of the Russian agents before he was deported back to Russia. In an August 25 letter to an editor, Page declared that "over the past half year, I have had the privilege to serve as an informal advisor to the staff of the Kremlin in preparation for their Presidency of the G-20 Summit next month, where energy issues will be a prominent point on the agenda."
While it is unclear what the FBI agents said to Page in their meeting, they most brought into question who Podobnyy really was.īut even after the FBI spoke with Page, his Russia nexus did not slow. Then in March, according to his testimony to the House Intelligence Committee, Page met with Podobnyy over a "coke or coffee." In an FBI transcript of Podobnyy discussing Page with a fellow SVR officer in April of 2013, he calls Page an "idiot," but somebody who the Russians could work with because of his "enthusiasm" and desire "to earn lots of money."įinally, six months after Page first met with the SVR officer, FBI counterintelligence agents investigating Podobnyy met with Page. The committee is conducting an investigation into Russia's tampering in the 2016 election. In January of 2013, during an energy conference in New York City, Page met with Victor Podobnyy, a Russian SVR (Russia's equivalent of the CIA) officer working undercover as a diplomat assigned to Russia's Mission to the United Nations out of New York City.Ĭarter Page, former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, speaks after testifying before the House Intelligence Committee on Novemin Washington, DC. At the time he was an energy consultant who travelled between the US and Russia frequently. Is it possible that Page may have been helping the US government? Could he have, in fact, been a US operational asset?Ĭarter Page first came to the attention of FBI's counterintelligence division in 2013, when he was approached by Russian intelligence officers. But is that where the similarities end?Īs somebody who spent over three years working undercover for the FBI as a double-agent against the Russians, I have often asked myself if the Page saga represents a US intelligence failure or perhaps something else. We both served in the US Navy and were both approached by Russian intelligence officers and FBI counterintelligence special agents. The appearance of Carter Page in the Nunes memo is the latest odd connection to the Russia investigation for a man disavowed by the Trump administration yet whose name seems to never quite fade away.įrom his trademark grin to his appearances on news shows, Page has remained an enigma that hints at some deeper, yet unknown, involvement.īut there is something else that has always intrigued me about Page: some of the similarities we seem to share.
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