http://observer.com/2018/02/devin-nunes-memo-disappoints-fails-to-cool- russia-investigation/

Excerpt:

Given the enormous hype created about the Nunes memo, its four pages amount to what President Trump’s Oval Office predecessor liked to call a “nothingburger.” There are numerous assertions without proof, and the memo’s core argument contradicts itself. It is a fraud, based on a highly selective storyline, particularly about Carter Page and “his” FISA warrant.

The memo does not explain what other information the FBI supplied to the FISC to obtain a FISA warrant for Page. Neither does it mention that four different Federal judges saw that information and approved the warrant and three renewals. Above all, the memo does not reveal the most important fact of all—that Carter Page had been of interest to the FBI for years due to his known connections to Russian spies.

In 2013, Page got on the radar of FBI counterintelligence thanks to his connections to a ring of New York-based operatives of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service or SVR. Those three spies—two who were posing as Russian diplomats and a third Illegal who was masquerading as a businessman—were gathering intelligence on Wall Street until they were exposed in January 2015. The two Legals fled the country prior to their arrest while the SVR Illegal, Evgeny Buryakov, was taken into custody. Buryakov admitted he was a spy and was sent back to Russia a little over two years later.

Carter Page was an operational target of that SVR ring. As court documents reveal, Page wanted to be a player and made himself available for recruitment by the Russian spies. The SVR sensed that he was a poseur —one of the Russians called Page “an idiot”—yet they maintained operational contacts with him. The FBI talked to Page to ascertain his agenda; he was assessed as a less-than-loyal American, based on his clandestine links to the SVR.

It’s no surprise then, that when Page popped up in the Trump campaign in 2016, the FBI thought he merited another look. That a wannabe SVR agent landed in the middle of Team Trump would not look like a coincidence to any seasoned counterintelligence officer. This is the true context of what happened with the Intelligence Community and Carter Page in 2016, which is entirely absent from the Nunes memo. Since Page’s dalliances with Russian intelligence have been reported in the media, it needs to be asked why HPSCI Republicans omitted these facts from their memo.