Not Deep Throat: The Trump Scandal Figure Who's Too Open For His Own Good
By ALLEGRA KIRKLAND Published JULY 20, 2017 6:00 AM
You might assume that Carter Page is having a worse summer than Penn Station, but he doesn’t see it that way.
Page is one of a handful of former Trump campaign hands reported to be under federal scrutiny for his ties to Russia—putting him in the company of Mike Flynn, Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner, figures much more central to the scandal—and he claims he’s being stonewalled by congressional Democrats who don’t want him to clear his name in an open hearing. But he’s confident that there is no merit to the multiple probes into Russian interference in the U.S. election, and has been eager to offer his account to anyone who’ll listen. He’s given numerous TV interviews and frequently blasts out to a list of reporters lengthy letters beseeching Congress for a date to testify in public.
Sitting on a bench at the Manhattan train station’s Starbucks on Tuesday afternoon, Page told TPM that his openness is not an act of self-promotion or the result of naiveté. Concerns that it may not be in the best interests of a person under scrutiny in of one of the most high-profile scandals ever to consume the White House to be so forthcoming don’t faze Page, either.
“It’s a cost-benefit analysis,” Page explained of his concerted effort to correct the record on the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, as Rihanna’s “Pon De Replay” pulsed through the coffee shop’s speakers.
He said he takes inspiration from a Marine he met at a Wounded Warrior Project fundraiser, who’d accepted an invitation to visit former President George W. Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas after losing his arm in Iraq. Page said when he asked the veteran how he felt while visiting the politician who launched the war that cost him a body part, the veteran replied, “I’m just doing my job. I’m doing the right thing.”
“It’s the same exact thing here,” Page said of his pushback against the various Russia investigations. “It’s not really worrying about the personal price you pay; it’s more about the broader mission and the national security of the U.S., right?”
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