Carter Page sought introduction to Trump campaign through NY State GOP Chairman Ed Cox-Albany Times Union, 2/5/18

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"“No mat­ter its mo­tives, the FBI be­came a tool of anti-Trump po­lit­i­cal ac­tors,” Cox tweeted Sunday. “This is un­ac­cept­able in a democ­racy and ought to alarm any­one who wants the FBI to be a non­par­ti­san en­forcer of the law.”" 

2/5/2018, "N.Y. GOP's Cox introduced Carter Page to Trump campaign," Albany Times-Union, Dan Freedman, Washington

"Forget about “joined at the hip.” In New York, whether it’s Albany or the five boroughs, the social and political worlds are metaphysically one and the same.

So it was no surprise that when a Naval Academy grad and aspiring foreign-policy player named Carter Page asked New York Republican Party Chairman Edward Cox to help him gain entrée to the Trump presidential campaign, Cox was only too happy to oblige.

Page, of course, is now one of the central figures in the crossfire between President Donald Trump and Democrats on Capitol Hill led by Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer over special counsel Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia investigation.

“I had no reason to question that he was anything other than a patriotic, loyal American who served in the armed forces and was doing what he thought was best for the country,” Cox said in a phone interview Monday. “That was the basis on which I forwarded” Page’s name to the Trump campaign.

On Friday, Trump and House Republicans released a controversial memo alleging the FBI obtained a warrant to intercept Page’s communications based on evidence from what the GOP lawmakers view as a tainted dossier authored by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele.

The memo accuses the FBI and Justice Department officials of failing to notify the court that Steele had expressed distaste for Trump and his dossier research was underwritten in part by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.

Democrats including Schumer have countered that the GOP memo is contradictory and incomplete. House Intelligence Committee members on Monday approved public release of the Democrats’ 10-page rebuttal.

As was the case with the GOP memo, the White House now has five days to approve or disapprove release.

Page took two trips to Russia in July and December 2016, and met Russian government officials. He had been picked up on an unrelated FBI wiretap in 2013 of Russian officials who saw Page as a useful dupe.

It remains to be seen whether Page is at the heart of Trump campaign contacts with the Russian government in a plot to swing the 2016 election away from then frontrunner Hillary Clinton or an innocent small-timer destined to be an answer to a future trivia question.

But for Cox, referring Page to the Trump campaign manager at time in late 2015, Corey Lewandowski, was a courtesy extended to someone he knew from the 2008 presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain of Arizona in New York.

Page, 46, a 1993 Naval Academy graduate and Ph.D. who heads his own energy capital investment firm, is a member of the New York City-based Council of Foreign Relations, as is Cox, 71, the son-in-law of President Richard M. Nixon and veteran of Republican politics in the state.

Cox “is a New York fixture, like the street signs,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic political consultant. “He might as well have a street named after him.”

Cox said he viewed Page as knowledgeable on Russia and foreign policy matters in general who was going out on his own after having been with the investment firm Merrill Lynch, which collapsed in 2008 at the onset of the great recession.

In lengthy testimony before the House Intelligence Committee last November, Page recalled sending Cox an email expressing an interest in “volunteering” and getting back a positive response.

Page said he “always had an admiration for President Trump” from “just watching him, and the successes he's had in a business context.”

Cox opened the door right at the top of Trump’s longshot presidential bid - Corey Lewandowski, the campaign manager.

Page told the committee that Lewandowski was happy to see him.

“He said, `Let’s meet up … I'd be happy to," because “Ed Cox is a respected individual,” Page said.

Respect, indeed, is the coin of the realm in political connections, whether in Albany, New York or Washington.

“Ed is a very pleasant, helpful, intense-about-his-politics fellow who can be very kind,” said Sheinkopf. “That’s who he is.”

On the day of the meeting at Trump Tower in January 2016, Page had to wait for quite a while.

Eventually when he was ushered into Lewandowski’s office, he observed a frenetic man trying to squeeze in a few coherent thoughts and questions amid people running in and out of his office and two ringing cell phones.

“It was almost a fleeting moment in time,” Page said.

Eventually he was led to the office of another top campaign staffer, Sam Clovis, who ultimately steered Page to Trump’ embryonic foreign-policy team.

In March 2016, Trump mentioned Page as one of five foreign-policy advisers. Democrats at the time mocked the team as a hastily assembled array of nobodies, a sharp contrast with the brain trust of diplomatic-world heavyweights advising Clinton.

Page departed the campaign in September after a Yahoo News report that the FBI was investigating Page’s Russia connections, but got back into its orbit after Trump’s unexpected victory.

Page grew up in Poughkeepsie and was recommended to the Naval Academy by then GOP Rep. Hamilton Fish IV.

In his testimony, he steadfastly maintained his innocence of any wrongdoing regarding Russia. While he didn’t deny having potential businesses interests in Russia, he told lawmakers that working on improved U.S. relations had been an ambition of his since 1991 when he first visited Russia as a Naval Academy midshipman.

Cox, an unabashed Trump supporter after the New York real estate magnate won the New York GOP primary in 2016, has not been shy about voicing support for the charges underlying the Republican memo released Friday.

"“No mat­ter its mo­tives, the FBI be­came a tool of anti-Trump po­lit­i­cal ac­tors,” Cox tweeted Sunday. “This is un­ac­cept­able in a democ­racy and ought to alarm any­one who wants the FBI to be a non­par­ti­san en­forcer of the law.”"

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