unfavorable toward the candidate at that time. that s correct. as we note here, and we noted in last year s report, we did not find text messages were inappropriate solely because people expressed a view as to which candidate they supported or didn t support in an election. what concerned us, the text messages we outlined last year and reference again in this year s report to certain individuals is the connection between their views and their work on the investigation. what do you believe are the most important points that this 400-plus page report brings forwa forward? i think there are several as you might expect in a 400-page report. that s why i still have time.
influenced, is it legitimate? it would depend on each fact and circumstance. here is what i m trying to tell you. if you open up a counterintelligence investigation to protect somebody, you should do it. did they ever try to protect donald trump from foreign influence? they did not brief him. we lay out on page 55 as a matter of fact, when they went in and gave a vanilla briefing the russians are out there, you better beware, didn t they have an fbi agent do a 302 on the defensive briefing itself? they sent one of the supervisory agents from the crossfire hurricane team to the briefing, and that agent prepared a report to the file of the briefing. about what trump said. about what mr. trump said and what mr. flynn said. so when we get defensively briefed tomorrow, would it be okay for fbi agents to open up 302s on what we said? we have very significant
information that could be helpful to mr. page, they lie about it. do you feel like mr. page was treated fairly by the department of justice and the fbi? i don t think the department of justice fairly treated these fisas and he was on the receiving end. you would not want to be on the receiving end, would you? i would not want agents or anybody failing to put forward all the information they re obligated to tell the cower. i was in ausa i would be very comfortable with you investigating anybody because i think you know the difference between getting somebody and trying to find the truth. that s what this is all about. the counterintelligence investigations, what s the purpose of a counterintelligence investigation? it s to identify potential threats to the nation. okay. this was opened up as a counterintelligence investigation, right? correct. we know the russians were
to mr. page. true it certainly could have and may well have been very helpful to mr. page. but at a minimum, without any doubt, it should have been known, followed up on what did his lawyer do? when the lawyer had the discussion with the agent and the agent said i want to see it, do you have it in writing, the lawyer said he did and he forwarded the liaison s email but altered it to insert the words and not a source into the email. he doctored it. he doctored the original email from the liaison. it made it look like the cia denied knowing mr. page. it flatly stated he was not a source. just imagine, folks, you re representing somebody as a defense attorney and they do this to one of your clients. i hope somebody pays the price for this, whether you like trump or not.