Carter Page, appearing on Good Morning America Tuesday, says he never has spoken with Donald Trump in his life even though the president named Page specifically as part of his foreign policy team in an interview with The Washington Post Editorial Board on March 21, 2016.
TRUMP: Well, I hadn’t thought of doing it, but if you want I can give you some of the names… Walid Phares, who you probably know, PhD, adviser to the House of Representatives caucus, and counter-terrorism expert; Carter Page, PhD; George Papadopoulos, he’s an energy and oil consultant, excellent guy; the Honorable Joe Schmitz, [former] inspector general at the Department of Defense; [retired] Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg; and I have quite a few more. But that’s a group of some of the people that we are dealing with. We have many other people in different aspects of what we do, but that’s a representative group.
And during a press conference at Sputnik headquarters in Moscow on December 12, 2016, Page told a different story.
"I made a commitment not to talk about the internal work that I did at the campaign," Page says in the 2016 clip when asked whether he had ever met Trump.
"I've certainly been in a number of meetings with him and I've learned a tremendous amount from him."
As for the report he bragged about being an informal advisor to the Kremlin, Page tells GMA he was part of an informal group. And when asked how he could be an advisor to both the Kremlin and Donald Trump, Page attempted to shift focus away from the question.
CNN:
ABC's "Good Morning America" anchor George Stephanopoulos pressed Page on the two roles as part of why law enforcement may have targeted him for surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act ...
"You can understand how that would raise questions and could lead to probable cause," Stephanopoulos said. "On the one hand, at one point you say you're an adviser to the Kremlin. Then you're an adviser to Donald Trump."
"Look, the probable cause, based on all the evidence that keeps dripping out and now has been substantiated with the Friday, you know, first memo, is that it was based on dodgy dossier which was, you know, a political stunt," Page responded.
Carter Page told Russian TV he was in 'a number of meetings' with Trump (The Hill)
Carter Page: I've never communicated with Trump (Politico)
Carter Page struggles to explain how he could advise both Kremlin and Trump team (CNN)