Breaking from President Donald Trump's assertions to the contrary Sunday, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said the Justice Department did not do anything wrong in the justifiable surveillance of Carter Page.
"By the Trump's campaign own admission, Carter Page was not a big player in the campaign," Rubio told host Jake Tapper on CNN's "State of the Union." "I don't believe that them looking into Carter Page means they were spying on the campaign."
Rubio was asked by Tapper about President Trump's early Sunday morning tweets, decrying the use of Page as "just the foot to surveil the Trump campaign."
But Rubio said the DOJ's concern with Page came before Page's involvement with the Trump campaign, however limited it was.
"Carter Page is one of these guys never would have heard of him before all of this but a guy on their screen before the campaign," Rubio told Tapper. "And when he comes into the near orbit of the campaign, they get interested when they put that together with what's happening with Russian interference.
"That's why they looked at him – not part of any broader plot. The only plot is to interfere in the election by the Russians."
Rubio concluded with support for the FISA process and the DOJ's justification, despite Page's rebuke to Tapper earlier Sunday. https://www.newsmax.com/politics/carter-page-says-fisa-warrant-misled-courts/2018/07/22/id/873088/
"I don't think they did anything wrong," Rubio said. "I think they went to the court and got the judges to approve it and laid out all of the information, and there was a lot of reasons unrelated to the dossier for why they wanted to look at Carter Page. And Carter page was not a key member of the Trump campaign and the Trump campaign has said that."
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