WASHINGTON – Federal authorities have agreed to pay $1.25 million to resolve a legal dispute with Carter Page, a former aide to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign who challenged FBI surveillance conducted during the Russia investigation.
Page filed his legal challenge in 2020, claiming federal agents subjected him to “unlawful spying” while investigating potential coordination between Trump’s campaign and Russian officials to influence the 2016 election. His lawsuit pointed to numerous mistakes and missing information in documents that FBI and Justice Department personnel presented to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in 2016 and 2017 when seeking permission to monitor Page based on suspicions he was working as a Russian operative.
Page strongly rejected any allegations of inappropriate connections to Russia and never faced criminal charges.
Lower courts dismissed Page’s case, with appeals court judges ruling in 2023 that he had filed his complaint beyond the allowable time limit. However, while Page’s appeal was before the Supreme Court, Trump administration officials notified the high court on Wednesday that they had reached an agreement with Page regarding his claims against the federal government. The resolution does not address Page’s separate claims against individual former FBI personnel he also sued.
The Supreme Court filing did not disclose the financial terms, but a source with knowledge of the matter, who requested anonymity to discuss confidential information, confirmed the settlement amount was $1.25 million.
Page’s legal action came after a scathing Justice Department inspector general review that identified substantial flaws in all four surveillance requests. Former FBI and Justice Department executives who approved the monitoring have since stated they would not have authorized it if they had understood the scope of the problems, and the FBI has implemented over 40 reforms designed to enhance the precision and completeness of future applications.
While the warrant application issues were serious, the surveillance of Page represented only a small fraction of the broader investigation into connections between Trump’s campaign and Russia.
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation determined that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election to benefit Trump and that the campaign accepted this help. Mueller’s prosecutors concluded they lacked adequate evidence to prove a criminal conspiracy between the campaign and Russian officials.
In March, the Justice Department resolved another case stemming from the Trump-Russia investigation, agreeing to pay approximately $1.2 million to Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser who admitted to lying to federal agents about his communications with a senior Russian official before receiving a presidential pardon.
