The paranoid Carter Page transcript: What in God’s name did I just read?By Alexandra Petri November 7 at 11:57 AM
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2017/11/07/the-paranoid-carter-page-transcript-what-in-gods-name-did-i-just-read/Carter Page’s testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the transcript of which was released Monday night, was like trying to read a magic eye painting. It is the sort of thing a lawyer — or, really, any person concerned with your welfare — would tell you not to say to a congressional committee. Yet, here we are. For anyone who doesn’t want to curl up with 243 pages of testimony and footnoted letters, here is pretty much how the thing went, severely condensed.Carter Page: Hello. I am a doctor and a scholar, and I am here about the world premiere of the dodgy dossier that inexplicably made all kinds of charges against me, an innocent man who has never met anyone directly in my life! I have been illegally wiretapped by the FBI, CIA and other U.S. propaganda agencies, and my life has been ruined. I must be continually on the move, like a shark. I have done nothing wrong, but I will answer none of the questions put to me, because I have been studying the law. I am, as I said, a scholar. Here is a letter. I know it looks like a scrawl in red crayon, but trust me — it is a letter about the CIA’s illegal dossier.
Thomas Rooney: Okay. Who are you? Did you work for the Trump campaign?
Page: The Washington Post says I did.
Rooney: Were you on the foreign policy committee?
Page: I may have been. It was very informal. I was a volunteer who had nothing to do with the campaign.
Rooney: Did you ever meet Mr. Trump?
Page: No. Never. I’ve met him in my heart. Never in my life, except on the television. And at rallies. I think he is beautiful and has a lot to teach all of us.
Trey Gowdy: So, you were a volunteer, unpaid, informal, unofficial. What was your role, exactly?
Page: Sometimes I would stand outside the glass window of the Trump campaign and look in admiringly, but I never ventured to set foot inside. I was not involved in any way, except I did sign a non-disclosure agreement, it will turn out, and met repeatedly with Sam Clovis. Honestly, no one wants me to be involved, ever. All my emails to them were unwelcome and went unreturned. I never went to Trump Tower, except for the fly-swatter incident. Whenever I showed up at Trump Tower, they would shoo me away with a big fly-swatter. One or two times or maybe eight. Ninety times. I never spoke directly to Donald Trump.
Gowdy: Why do you keep saying “directly”? How else would you speak to a person?
Page: Listen, Trey, we can speak as one lawyer to another. I am an expert in the law after taking a mail-order course in what I believe is known as the Law of the Sea, and I know a man must choose his words wisely.
Gowdy: What?
Page: I never lie. Not unlike Daniel Patrick Moyni —
Gowdy: Have you ever had any interactions with the Russian government —
Page: I’ve never at any point in my life spoken to another human being. Also let me point out that there is a great difference between meeting with someone and meeting them, as in, a greeting, per se. I for instance have never had a meeting with anyone, because they have always been trying to make a tactful exit, but I have greeted many people in passing, sometimes running along the sidewalk for blocks shouting their name.
[...]
Excerpt. Read more at
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2017/11/07/the-paranoid-carter-page-transcript-what-in-gods-name-did-i-just-read/
