Story highlights
Carter Page was once cited by Trump as an foreign policy aide.
The former Trump adviser at one point even cited the popular Maroon 5 song 'Harder to Breathe'
Former Donald Trump campaign adviser Carter Page is asking the Department of Justice to release documents that could detail efforts undertaken by the Obama administration to surveil him – and using Maroon 5 to make his case.
Page, once cited by Trump as a foreign policy aide, was being monitored by the FBI in summer 2016 on suspicions he knowingly engaged in clandestine intelligence activities on behalf of Moscow, US officials told CNN last month. Page is therefore a central player in the investigations into Russia interference in the presidential election, though he has denied all wrongdoing.
In a 10-page letter dated Sunday, Page tried to use the firing of FBI Director James Comey last week as further encouragement for deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to restore the DOJ’s credibility.
“The documents that the US Department of Justice must now provide are crucial to repairing the integrity of your organization following last year’s events,” Page wrote in a letter obtained by CNN. “Your unbiased leadership in authorizing the release of this information can manifestly help prove how completely unjustified this entire witch hunt organized by the Clinton campaign and the Obama Administration has been all along.”
Page at one point even cited, with a footnote to a YouTube video, the popular Maroon 5 song “Harder to Breathe.”
“A song from popular culture accurately describes many of the matters usurping a vast proportion of your time and America’s attention given the primary focus of the mainstream media today,” Page wrote, before turning to the lyric: “Like a little girl who cries in the face of a monster that lives in her dreams”
Page included a footnote in his letter with the URL to the music video for the song.
Page has written several recent, colorful letters to officials as part of his defense against the accusations of coordinating with the Russians. He’s written at least two letters to the Senate intelligence committee after they sought information for their investigation. In one such letter last week, Page said the committee’s request for detailed information about his recent contacts with Russians is “preposterous” and “illogical,” and is ” based on “lies from corrupt politicians.”
CNN’s Manu Raju contributed reporting.