Carter Page’s testimony to the House Intelligence Committee was released last night. I gave it a quick read and produced a Twitter thread as I read through it. So did several others. Here’s the start of my thread.
Carter Page refers to "my legal team". Strange that none of them accompany him when he gives testimony.https://t.co/lv5jUVC9TV
— Cheryl Rofer (@CherylRofer) November 7, 2017
In substance, it’s hard to interpret most of what he says because he gives three or four answers to everything, some word salad, some irrelevant, some contradictory. You can see the committee members becoming irritated at times. The discussions of the Fifth Amendment and why (or whether) he invoked it are something else.
Another discussion of the Fifth Amendment. pic.twitter.com/zOa8iuYPBM
— Cheryl Rofer (@CherylRofer) November 7, 2017
A few things come through fairly clearly: The Russians paid for his trip to Moscow in July 2016. He describes what looks like Podobnyy’s recruitment of him for spying. Committee members were well prepared and asked good questions.
Most of it needs much more attention before I’d conclude anything more. Be careful of commentary on it today. What I saw last night on Twitter looked like there will be some overinterpretation. I’m going to compare it with the Steele dossier, which is my current big project anyway.