carter page s communications after convincing a foreign intelligence surveillance court judge that there was probable cause to believe page was acting as an agent of a foreign power. in this case, russia according to the officials. page told the post, this confirms all of my suspicions about unjustified, politically motivated government surveillance. i have nothing to hide. well, tadam entis joins us now. adam, does this tell us the fbi thought there might be something in cahoots between the trump campaign and the russians in trying to swing the election? well, what i think it really shows us is that over the last over the last few months and certainly over the summer, when the intelligence was coming in about russia s effort to try to intervene in the election, that they were actively trying to figure out the nature of these relationships. and as i m sure you know, the hurdle is pretty high for getting a fisa on a u.s. person. so they had to make the case that carter page in this
sort of what was known when and by whom, at least on some levels. explain. i think that the white house s official line here is and is going to be that they were the victim here. that michael flynn lied to the vice president. that he lied to spicer, and those are the two people who went out and made incorrect statements about flynn s contacts with the russian ambassador. and i think they want to avoid asking adam s very excellent questions. who else knew, right? you know, if flynn was talking to the russian ambassador the day after barack obama instituted these sanctions, was he doing so at the direction of the president-elect, and did he report back on those conversations? i think that is an absolutely crucial question and one that i think that the white house would like to put behind them and
after he had it, or did he check with certain people in the trump team or trump himself before he had the call? and that s something we don t know the answer to. it may take a long time before we get the answer to that. the other question for me that seems urgent is trying to understand when sally yates, you know, notified the white house counsel about these questionable communications and the potential for blackmail, what did the counsel s office do? who did they talk to? from the public statements by vice president pence when the story broke last week, he was surprised, clearly, and taken aback. have you been able to get any comment? no, i think at this point we just don t know the answers to these questions. we have with us another great reporter who has been digging as well. ryan lizza. i hope i m not outing you before you published your article. you started talking to people inside the administration who are giving you their version of
character, integrity and lack of processes. adam, to you. what about the broader issue of the public s right and need to know what happen between this administration and russia. it s not just that flynn is being investigated and for this call with russia and other potential communications. it s also carter page, the former campaign chairman paul manafort who was pushed out with an investigation going on right now. and also one of the people that has trump s ear, roger stone. this is a larger picture question, is it not, about this campaign and this administration and russia? yeah, absolutely. i mean, this is obviously something we ve seen over and over again. we ve had other people that have been close to trump that have basically been disassociated from him as a result of questions about russian ties. you have to, i think, understand the context here. the intelligence community in early december had reached this
to for the sake of our own credibility, i think we have to be able to be honest about that. coming on the heels of some strong words about israel from the president s chief of staff, denis mcdonough, while addressing j-street yesterday, today s report in the wall street journal built on leaks from senior u.s. officials, let s be clear, looks like the latest salvo in an increasingly acrimonious battle between the white house and benjamin netanyahu. joining me is white house national security correspondent adam entis. first, i want you to respond to blanket denials being issued by members of the israeli government. did you get this story wrong? so if you look carefully at the wall street journal story, basically said that the israelis were spying on the negotiations not on the it didn t say specifically spying on the u.s.