A new report says The New York Times repeated disputed claims about Trump, FISA and Obama-era surveillance despite declassified records, inspector general findings and court filings documenting FBI informants, FISA errors and unlawful surveillance tied to the 2016 campaign.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
The New York Times is facing renewed criticism over its handling of the Trump-Russia surveillance record after publishing an article that said President Donald Trump lacked evidence for claims that the Obama administration used surveillance powers against his 2016 campaign.
A Just the News report said the Times, which won Pulitzer Prizes for its Trump-Russia coverage, again misstated key facts about the federal government’s surveillance of Trump campaign figures and the later findings on FBI misconduct.
The dispute centers on a New York Times article published this week about Trump’s comments on Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The Times wrote that Trump has had a “long and complicated relationship” with FISA, at times “condemning it” and at other times “embracing it.”
“During his first term, Mr. Trump posted on social media just hours before Congress was to vote on it to suggest without evidence that the program had been abused by the Obama administration to surveil his presidential campaign,” the newspaper wrote.
Just the News disputed that characterization, citing declassified records, inspector general findings, court documents and criminal proceedings showing that Trump campaign figures were targeted by FBI informants and that the bureau’s surveillance applications contained serious errors and omissions.
A 2019 Justice Department inspector general report found 17 “inaccuracies and omissions” in the FBI’s applications to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Those problems included the withholding of information from the Office of Intelligence before the final FISA application was submitted in 2017.
The report also examined how the FBI relied on the Clinton campaign-funded Steele dossier while failing to include information that undercut parts of the narrative presented to the surveillance court.
Former FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith later pleaded guilty in 2020 to altering an email used in the FISA process. The alteration made it appear that Page had not been a source for another U.S. government agency, though Page had worked with an unnamed agency in earlier dealings involving Russians. Just the News said it confirmed that agency was the CIA.
The FBI received accurate information about Page’s prior work during the Obama administration in 2016 and altered the email in 2017, according to court records.
In response to a Just the News inquiry, the Times said its “reporting on the challenges to reauthorize FISA section 702 presents readers with a clear and factual picture.”
Page later sued the federal government over the surveillance, and in April 2026, the Justice Department agreed to settle his case for $1.25 million. The settlement was revealed in a court filing.
“No American should ever face covert and unlawful surveillance based on their political view,” a Justice Department spokesman said after the settlement became public. “The investigation into Carter Page — a man never charged with a single crime — relied on inherently flawed and uncorroborated information, proving it was a political sham from the get-go.”
The Supreme Court separately declined to revive Page’s lawsuit against former FBI Director James Comey and others involved in the investigation.
Declassified FBI records later obtained by Just the News showed that Stefan Halper, an informant who also worked as a Pentagon researcher, was directed to meet with Page in October 2016 at a Virginia farm while Barack Obama was still president. The FBI gave Halper the codename “Mitch,” according to the records.
The FBI-recorded conversation showed Page denied the collusion allegations rather than confirming them.
“The core lie is that I met with these sanctioned Russian officials, several of which I never even met in my entire life, but they said that I met them in July,” Page told Halper during an Oct. 17, 2016, interaction at Halper’s Northern Virginia farm, according to an FBI transcript.
The declassified Halper-Page records and the underlying FBI transcript showed the FBI’s effort to question Page about supposed ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Page was not the only Trump campaign figure approached by undercover operatives.
The FBI also sent an undercover operative posing as a research assistant named Azra Turk to meet with George Papadopoulos. The Times itself reported on that episode in 2019. Investigators also had Halper speak with Papadopoulos about alleged Russia ties, records show.
The FBI documents on Halper’s interaction with Papadopoulos were later made available in a separate intercept file.
Just the News also obtained the FBI’s operational plan for Halper’s work, which showed the bureau intended to elicit information from Trump campaign figures about Russia.
If the Trump campaign figure “does not provide tangible information during the meeting, or if CD explicitly states he does not know of any RF (Russian federation) involvement in the campaign the FBI will focus on a second target of the investigation,” the memo stated.
The same operational plan warned that Halper’s contact with Page could cause Page to “recognize this meeting as a way to collect information about the Trump Campaign that he is not willing to share. The conversation may be relayed to others in the Trump Campaign and create a possible issue for the” FBI informant.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation later found no criminal conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign.
Special Counsel John Durham went further, concluding in a 300-page report sent to Congress in 2023 that federal law enforcement and intelligence officials did not have evidence of collusion when they opened the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
“Neither U.S. law enforcement nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation,” Durham wrote.
Just the News argued that the record shows the Obama-era FBI and Justice Department opened an investigation into the rival Trump campaign without sufficient evidence and then used informants and surveillance tools against campaign figures.
The media’s early Trump-Russia coverage has also been scrutinized by former New York Times reporter Jeff Gerth, who wrote a four-part Columbia Journalism Review series detailing errors and overstatements by major news organizations.
Gerth examined one Times report involving alleged conversations between members of Russian intelligence and Trump campaign figures. Then-Times editor Dean Baquet said in footage recorded for a Showtime documentary that he wanted the story to “show the range” of alleged Russian contacts and “meetings, some of which may be completely innocent,” while also explaining why the contacts continued “to hobble them.”
Gerth wrote that the published article did not provide many specifics.
“As for the specific details Baquet asked to be included in the story, the reporters simply wrote that their sources ‘would not disclose many details.’ The piece did contain a disclaimer up high, noting that their sources, ‘so far,’ had seen ‘no evidence’ of the Trump campaign colluding with the Russians,” Gerth wrote.
“But in the next paragraph it reported anonymous officials being ‘alarmed’ about the supposed Russian-Trump contacts because they occurred while Trump made his comments in Florida in July 2016 wondering whether Russia could find Hillary’s missing emails,” he wrote.
Gerth also reported that FBI personnel privately disputed the Times story. Former FBI agent Peter Strzok wrote that the bureau was unaware “of ANY Trump advisers engaging in conversations with Russian intelligence officials,” according to Gerth.
Gerth described the “secret surveillance of Page” as “an effort to bring in heavier artillery to an FBI inquiry that, in the fall of 2016, wasn’t finding any nefarious links, as the Times reported back then.”
Despite later findings and criticism, the Times has stood by its Russia reporting and its Pulitzer-winning coverage. Trump has sued the Pulitzer Prize board over its decision to stand by the awards.
“I think we covered that story better than anyone else,” Baquet said, according to a recording of an internal Times event on the day Mueller announced his findings.
In a 2023 statement to Columbia Journalism Review, the Times said it “thoroughly pursued credible claims, fact-checked, edited, and ultimately produced ground-breaking journalism that has proven true time and again.”
The latest dispute over the Times’ FISA article has reopened broader questions about how the press has described the FBI’s 2016 surveillance activity, the Crossfire Hurricane investigation and the now-discredited Trump-Russia collusion claims.
Just the News argued that the public record includes substantial evidence that Trump campaign figures were targeted by undercover FBI sources and that surveillance tools were misused, making the Times’ statement that Trump made the claim “without evidence” inaccurate.
Original article
Comments