Judge nixes ex-Trump adviser Carter Page's suit over Yahoo Russia article

Source: Politico | March 21, 2018 | Josh Gerstein

A federal judge has dismissed former Trump adviser Carter Page’s legal claims over a September 2016 Yahoo news article that revealed he was under U.S. government scrutiny over his ties to Russia.

U.S. District Court Judge Lorna Schofield rejected a portion of a lawsuit Page filed without an attorney last year seeking damages against Yahoo’s parent company Oath over the 2016 story by veteran investigative reporter Michael Isikoff.

Schofield’s ruling issued Tuesday came largely on technical grounds. She said the article could not be considered a violation of a federal law known as the Anti-Terrorism Act, despite Page’s claim that the story, headlined “U.S. intel officials probe ties between Trump adviser and Kremlin” resulted in death threats against him.

However, Schofield noted that Page never really argued that the Yahoo story was false.

“The Article does not say that Plaintiff actually met with….two Russians, but rather that U.S. officials had received reports of such meetings,” wrote Schofield, an Obama appointee based in Manhattan. “The substance and even headline of the Article express uncertainty about the occurrence and substance of any such meetings. That some readers may have assumed that the meetings occurred does not constitute fraud by the Article’s publisher.”

Indeed, the 2016 Yahoo story appears to have been accurate. A House Republican memo declassified by President Donald Trump last month shows that Just weeks after the Yahoo story was published, the FBI sought and obtained a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant for Page’s communications because of suspicions that he was a conduit for Russian intelligence services.

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