Supreme Court Declines to Revisit Carter Page’s Lawsuit

On Monday, the Supreme Court decided not to revive a lawsuit filed by former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page regarding FBI surveillance during the investigation of alleged connections between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign.

The justices dismissed Mr. Page’s appeal, leaving the previous ruling from a lower court intact. This effectively concludes his attempts to hold former FBI Director James Comey and other officials personally accountable for what he claims was unlawful surveillance. Notably, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson did not take part in this case.

Mr. Page, who was part of the Trump campaign’s foreign policy team, was under surveillance via warrants granted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court during 2016 and 2017 as part of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation.

He has not faced any criminal charges and has consistently denied accusations of being a Russian agent.

Context of the Case

The situation became quite controversial when a Justice Department inspector general’s report highlighted significant issues within the FBI’s application for surveillance against Page. Officials from both the FBI and Justice Department later indicated they would not have approved the applications had they known the full scope of the problems uncovered by investigators.

In response to these findings, the FBI has since implemented numerous corrective actions to ensure that future surveillance applications are more accurate and comprehensive.

Page filed a lawsuit against Comey and others, claiming they violated his constitutional rights by submitting incomplete applications for surveillance. However, lower courts dismissed the case, noting Page had not directly targeted the officials responsible for carrying out the surveillance.

Recently, Page reached a $1.25 million settlement with the federal government regarding the surveillance claims but wished to continue pursuing allegations against specific former employees.

The Supreme Court’s Decision

The Supreme Court did not provide any explanation for its decision to reject the appeal, which is standard procedure in such cases.

This decision represents another episode in the broader investigation into ties between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russian efforts to interfere in the election. Special Counsel Robert Mueller found that Russia did indeed meddle in the election but stopped short of asserting that members of the Trump campaign had criminally colluded with Russia.