Ex- Trump adviser says campaign OK’d Moscow trip, speech

Former Donald Trump campaign national security adviser Carter Page had the Trump campaign’s permission for his controversial speech in Moscow in July 2016, Page told USA TODAY.

Page confirmed that he asked the campaign for permission in June before making the trip to Moscow and campaign management cleared him to do so, as long as he acted as a private citizen and not a representative of the campaign. Page declined to publicly name the person who cleared him.

For months, Trump officials tried to distance the campaign from Page after his speech at the New Economic School in Moscow, which drew intense political scrutiny because he called aspects of U. S. foreign policy “hypocritical” and sharply criticized America’s sanctions against Russia.

In the weeks that followed, Trump campaign aides first said he was only an informal adviser, while others said he had no role at all, though Trump himself had publicly named Page as an adviser.

In an interview with USA TODAY on Monday, Corey Lewandowski, who was Trump’s campaign manager until June 20, 2016, both denied granting Page permission to travel to Moscow in his capacity as a private individual and said he couldn’t remember whether he had or not. In that interview, Lewandowski gave a litany of contradictory answers about Page’s involvement in the campaign.

“I’m very clear about this,” he said. “I granted nobody permission to do that.”

Lewandowski said he has never had a conversation with Page and has never met him. He said he was unsure whether he had communicated with Page by email.

“I can’t say unequivocally I’ve never responded to an email to somebody,” Lewandowski said.

In an audio recording of an editorial board meeting March 21, 2016, at The Washington Post, Trump asks Lewandowski to hand him a list of national security advisers he was announcing. Trump announced members of the national security advisory committee at the meeting, including Page.

In his speech July 7, 2016, in Moscow, Page spoke about U. S. foreign policy and made clear that he was speaking in his capacity as a private individual.

Later in July, Page attended events connected to the 2016 Republican National Convention, along with other members of the national security advisory team. There, Page and Sen. Jeff Sessions, R- Ala., spoke to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak as part of a program attended by dozens of diplomats.

Page left the Trump campaign in September 2016 amid controversy over his speech.

The U. S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which is investigating alleged Russian influence on last year’s U. S. elections, contacted Page and requested that he preserve materials related to Russia.

In an interview with Fox News on Saturday, Lewandowski said, “I don’t know who Carter Page is.”

Caveat was that it was as private citizen

EPA Carter Page is a former foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump.