REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin
Former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page suggested sending then-candidate Donald Trump to meetings with Russian officials in May 2016, according to emails read during Page’s testimony to the House Intelligence Committee last week. In a May 16, 2016, email to fellow campaign staffers Walid Phares and J.D. Gordon, Page wrote that he had been making his “key messages as low-key and apolitical as possible” but that he recently “got another idea. If [Trump] would like to take my place of honor and raise the temperature a little bit, of course I’d be willing to yield this honor to him.” During Page’s testimony, he confirmed that the “honor” was going to Russia. Page testified that he was unaware that fellow foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos was also lobbying the Trump campaign to send Trump to Russia at the same time. Papadopoulos, who was in communication with Russian officials, sent at least 11 emails from March to August 2016 proposing a Trump trip to meet with Russian officials. In other emails read during Page’s House testimony, he boasted to campaign staff of receiving “incredible insights and outreach” from Russian legislators and senior members of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s administration. Page testified that those insights were just observations from a speech he attended.