Thread by @SethAbramson

BREAKING: BOMBSHELL.

When Page said he'd cooperate with the Senate, I said I expected otherwise.

Now here we are. cnn.com/2017/10/10/pol…

2/ Page was never a good bet to cooperate because the feds *seem* to already have him on Making False Statements regarding his Moscow trip.

3/ Page has said publicly and—we believe—in FBI interviews he never met with Rosneft's Igor Sechin, but the U.S. IC has concluded otherwise.

4/ More recently, I've asked why (post-Papadopoulos) he missed the first meeting of Trump's Foreign Policy Team just days after being named.

5/ The team was photographed as it began discussing how to send a "private citizen" to Moscow. Page wasn't photographed—then went to Moscow.

6/ He described his status for the Moscow trip the same way his Trump handler Clovis discussed the man Trump needed to contact the Kremlin.

7/ Page later said on camera that during his subsequent December trip to Moscow, he met with Rosneft execs—right after the big Rosneft sale.

8/ The Rosneft sale in December 2016 is the same one that the Steele Dossier says Page was connected to through his Summer 2016 Moscow trip.

9/ On these and other grounds—including an actually insane letter Page sent to Congress—his promise to cooperate always sounded very hollow.

10/ (I think most attorneys—but few journalists—were *presuming* Page wouldn't cooperate, so I don't claim to be alone in that assessment.)

PS/ Given how scared Page was even to say who brought him into the campaign (Clovis), I think the "Page pardon watch" has to begin now, too.

PS2/ Many will now ask, "Does this matter?" Answer—sort of. If the FBI already has him on Making False Statements, they have their leverage.

PS3/ Prosecutors can also offer the worst brand of "use immunity" in order to force people to testify while retaining a chance to prosecute.

PS4/ As for "What does it mean?", there's a legal and a non-legal answer. To laypeople, it tends to suggest that a person committed a crime.

PS5/ Legally, it means you think your words could aid a probe that could lead to charges against you. But it doesn't mean you concede guilt.

PS6/ But you can't plead the Fifth as to some subjects and not other related ones. And document production has a lower level of protection.

PS7/ So tonight *many* attorneys are asking, "Does Page have an attorney? Because nothing he's doing jives with conventional legal advice."

PS8/ That suggests Trump and his camp really have left Page to swing in the wind—perhaps because they think they have plausible deniability.

PS9/ It's also true that the degree of fidelity Page has shown to Russian thinking pegs him as a flight risk—he *could* still flee to Putin.

PS10/ So Trump and his allies may just see Page as either such a loose cannon or so committed to the Cause that they can—or must—stand back.

NOTE/ As discussed in mid-August, Page is one of the *top 5 targets* for Mueller's first indictment: Manafort, Flynn, Kushner, Page, Don Jr.

NOTE2/ Based on the info we've gotten since then—on Page being under FBI questioning for 10 hours—Making False Statements seems most likely.

NOTE3/ But again—either one pleads the Fifth as to ANY questions on a given (broadly defined) transaction, or not. It's not pick-and-choose.

NOTE4/ And while document production can *sometimes* be equated with testimony—thus receiving USC protection—in many instances it cannot be.