The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has settled a lawsuit filed by Carter Page, a former foreign policy adviser to President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, for $1.25 million. The settlement resolves claims that Page was unlawfully surveilled by the FBI during its Russia investigation. Page had alleged in his 2020 lawsuit that the FBI and DOJ made errors and omissions in applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to monitor him on suspicion of being a Russian agent. Page denied any improper ties to Russia and was never charged with wrongdoing.
The settlement, disclosed in a Supreme Court filing on April 22, does not cover claims Page had made against former FBI officials he had also sued. The DOJ’s inspector general had previously found significant problems with the four surveillance applications, prompting the FBI to implement over 40 corrective steps to improve the accuracy of future applications. Despite the issues, the FBI maintained that the surveillance was justified based on the information available at the time.
Page’s lawsuit followed a critical inspector general report that identified flaws in the surveillance applications. Former FBI and DOJ officials involved in the process have since stated they would not have approved the applications had they known the extent of the issues. The settlement marks the conclusion of a legal battle that began in 2020, with lower courts initially dismissing Page’s claims on procedural grounds.