The OIG report acknowledges, Carter Page was an “operational contact” from 2008-2013 for an unnamed US Government intelligence agency, and this was withheld from the FISA Court. What the Horowitz report fails to acknowledge, however, is had Page not been infiltrated into the Trump Campaign by his Agency handlers, there would have been no Steele Memo, and thus no probable cause for commencing FISA wiretapping or even an FBI investigation.

The FBI investigation was premised upon a fraud by Page's handlers in the Intelligence Community. Omitting the fact that Carter Page had for years been a double-agent for U.S. intelligence is a major fraud perpetrated upon the FISA Court, that is still being obscured by Horowitz's curiously incomplete report, an omission that is still being ignored by most U.S. media.

How can one know that Page was being handled? The other (unnamed by Horowitz) US Government agency knew exactly what Page was doing, all the while that the FBI was obtaining fraudulent warrants. The CIA was party to that fraud. As the report states, during the summer of 2016, the FBI talked to that Agency about Page, and the other agency provided a memo on August 17 providing confirmation that Page had been acting as its operative.

Mention of that memo was omitted by the lead FBI Crossfire Hurricane investigator from the first three FISA warrant applications sought by the FBI, and a copy of the email memo was subsequently altered by a Justice Dept. lawyer as part of the final FISA application the following year. According to page 159-160 of the Horowitz report:

"When asked about Page's prior status with that other agency by a Crossfire Hurricane supervisor, SSA 2, who was going to be the affiant on the final FISA renewal
application, the OGC Attorney told SSA 2 that Page had never had a relationship
with the other U.S. government agency. In addition, the OGC Attorney altered the
email that the other U.S. government agency had sent to the OGC Attorney so that
the email stated that Page had not been a source for the other agency; the OGC
Attorney then forwarded the altered email to SSA 2, who told us he relied on the
email. Shortly thereafter, SSA 2 served as the affiant on the final renewal
application, which was again silent on Page's prior relationship with the other U.S.
government agency."

At the very least, his handlers at the other agency let Page get on with the task of worming his way into the Trump Campaign, and jetting off to Moscow, knowing full well that the FBI was treating that as the basis for seeking a FISA warrant to investigate the campaign for cooperation with Russian espionage. There was indeed cause to suspect that Carter Page was acting as an operative for an intelligence agency, but it was a U.S. intelligence agency, not the Russians. The CIA knew that full well. And, this was not the first time that Page had played the role of a double-agent in his dealings with Russians, but this is something FBI investigators could have should have known from their own counter-intelligence files.

Strangely, nothing about Page's involvement in the Polobnyy case is even mentioned in the Horowitz report. One has to be curious why Horowitz fails to mention any specific details that Page had previously been a cooperating Government witness who in 2103 was recruited by the FBI. That is well established in the public record, if you know where to look for it. How is it possible that the Crossfire Hurricane squad didn't know about Carter Page's role in the FBI's own investigation and prosecution of Viktor Polobnyy, and his SVR associates at the Russian United Nations mission in New York? In May 2017, it was revealed that Page had testified in court against these Russian intelligence officers in a major FBI espionage case that led to the closure of the SVR Residenzia. As I first reported at JPR two years ago:

As far as I can walk the cat back, the beginnings of “Russiagate” may have been FBI surveillance of Carter Page during a 2013 meeting with Victor Podobnyy, a Russian “Junior Attache” to the UN in NY. U.S. intelligence had Podobnyy under human and electronic surveillance as a suspected Russian SVR intelligence operative, and the FBI had recorded a conversation in March of between Podoobnyy and a second Russian agent discussing his attempt to recruit Page as an asset.

According to court documents, in January 2013, Carter Page first met Podobnyy at an international energy conference, and later that year Page provided information about the U.S. energy industry to Podobbny. But, this is where it only starts to get really interesting.

In a letter published today by CNN, Page informed a US Senate committee that shortly after he met with Podobnny in 2013 he was interviewed by federal agents in June, 2013 and that he became a cooperating witness in the federal investigation and resulting 2015 prosecution. See below, and .pdf linked at http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/08/politics/carter-page-russian-official/

Indeed, a court document in the 2015 trial of an SVR officer confirms that Page was indeed interviewed by two FBI Agents about dealings with Podobnyy. Carter Page is referred to in the Affidavit as Male-1:

34. On or about June 13, 2013, [FBI] Agent-2 and I interviewed
Male-1. Male-1 stated that he first met VICTOR PODOBNYY, the
defendant, in January 2013 at an energy symposium in New York City.
During this initial meeting, PODOBNYY gave Male-1 PODOBNYY’s
business card and two email addresses. Over the following months,
Male-1 and PODOBNYY exchanged emails about the energy business and
met in person on occasion, with Male-1 providing PODOBNYY with
Male-l’s outlook on the current and future of the energy industry.
Male-1 also provided documents to PODOBNYY about the energy business.

Having cooperated with the FBI in a counter-intelligence operation and later as a witness in the 2015 trial of a Russian intelligence officer, it seems implausible that Page could have been a willing secret agent of the Russians at any point thereafter. More likely, he was playing out a role assigned to him, perhaps under duress, by the FBI. Page was apparently sufficiently trusted by the FBI that he was allowed to travel to Russia several times before and after the Bureau busted the Podobnny cell in September 2014. [See FBI Affidavit for the Prosecution, http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/2015_0126_spyring2.pdf.%5D It should be pointed out that Page was never charged as an accomplice.

In addition, it has been widely speculated that Page is also the figure identified in a related court case against the Russian SVR defendants as "UBE-1" (Undercover Bureau Employee-1), a New York energy analyst who in 2013 delivered folders containing hidden FBI listening devices. For that role, if it was indeed Page who "wore a wire" or could have been expected to be recorded by a listening device, the FBI would have been legally required to have first obtain a FISA warrant. Yet, there is no record we know about of such an earlier FISA warrant application.

[UPDATE 12/11/19]: Two isolated reports indicate that Page was the subject of an earlier FISA application in 2014. See, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/former-trump-adviser-carter-page-unde.... More significantly, a CNN print article reported on August 3, 2017: https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/03/politics/mueller-investigation-russia-tru...

Page had been the subject of a secret intelligence surveillance warrant since 2014, earlier than had been previously reported, US officials briefed on the probe told CNN.
When information emerged last summer suggesting that the Russians were attempting to cultivate Page as a way to gain an entrée into the Trump campaign, the FBI renewed its interest in him. Initially, FBI counterintelligence investigators saw the campaign as possible victims being targeted by Russian intelligence.

We do know that Page testified at trial against Polobnyy, a non-diplomatic cover Russian SVR officer. In that trial, Page was referred to as "MALE-1" in court documents. After that, the Russians also clearly knew who Page was working for, and what he was doing. So, Page was a US intelligence operative for at least five years. Seemingly, the only one who didn't know that was the FISA Judge - and, even now, the American people. See, https://progresspond.com/2017/06/23/heres-the-backstory-behind-russiagat...

Furthermore, there would have been no Russiagate as we knew it without Carter Page and fabrications about his acting as a Russian agent inserted into the Steele Memo. In view of FBI omission of material, exculpatory evidence from the FISA warrant applications, added to the outright falsification of these facts about Page by the DOJ, all evidence gathered pursuant to the Carter Page line of investigation must be excluded as part of a massive political deception campaign. That portion of Russiagate is a legal fraud perpetrated on the FISA Court and the American people. Please see my posting yesterday for more details. https://caucus99percent.com/content/justice-oig-report-carter-page-was-u...

When one considers that the Carter Page “evidence” also taints the case brought against Manafort, and that the case for an FBI investigation of the Trump Campaign for alleged collusion was largely based in the activities of one or more CIA agents provocateur, the Russia collusion case for Impeachment is poisoned apples. That is something that Mueller obviously recognized. The House Impeachment Panel had to invoke Plan B from Outer Space, arms for Ukraine, instead.

The crimes committed by the officials at the FBI, CIA, and Dept. Of Justice in building the case for wiretapping Trump aren't going to be so easy to make go away.