On Friday, the FBI released a collection of interview notes, also known as 302s, taken during the interrogation of Carter Page and George Papadoupolos, both of whom were targets of illegal surveillance on the Trump campaign. The release comes in response to a lawsuit filed by CNN and Buzzfeed.
According to The Daily Caller:
The Justice Department released its fourth batch of documents from the special counsel’s probe Friday, including notes of FBI interviews with former Trump campaign advisers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos.
The documents include the FBI’s interviews conducted in 2017 with Papadopoulos and with Page, as well as interviews with Russian associates of Page.
The records were provided to BuzzFeed News and CNN in response to Freedom of Information Act lawsuits for FBI notes, known as 302s, that were used in the Trump-Russia probe.
Papadopoulos and Page were two of the four original targets of Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign.
The probe was opened on July 31, 2016 and melded into the special counsel’s investigation on May 17, 2017, when the Justice Department appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel.
A report of the investigation ultimately concluded that there was no evidence the Trump campaign or any associates conspired with the Russian government to influence the 2016 election. The report also said there was no evidence that any Trump aides worked as Russian agents.
FBI agents first interviewed Papadopoulos on Jan. 27, 2017 and conducted follow-up interviews in February 2017. He was interviewed multiple times following his arrest on July 27, 2017 on charges of making false statements in his initial FBI interview.
In that first interview, Papadopoulos told agents about contacts he had in 2016 with Joseph Mifsud, a London-based academic.
Papadopoulos said that Mifsud told him during a meeting in London on April 26, 2016 that he had learned from Russian sources that Russia had “dirt” on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the form of “thousands” of her emails.
The FBI opened Crossfire Hurricane based on a tip from Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, who met Papadopoulos in London on May 10, 2017. Downer said in a memo that was given to the FBI that Papadopoulos said Russia might help the Trump campaign close to the election.
