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A former Trump campaign adviser says he was targeted by the Obama administration because he was a "dissident."

New York business consultant Carter Page told ABC News that he was "so happy" to learn that The Washington Post reported on Tuesday night that the FBI obtained a secret FISA warrant to monitor his communication last summer as part of its ongoing investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government because it confirms that he had been the victim of "human rights violations."

"There had been prior reports, but I was so happy to hear that further confirmation is now being revealed," Page said. "It shows how low the Clinton/Obama regime went to destroy our democracy and suppress dissidents who did not fully support their failed foreign policy. It will be interesting to see what comes out when the unjustified basis for those FISA requests are more fully disclosed over time, including potentially the Dodgy Dossier -- a document that clearly is false evidence, which could represent yet another potential crime."

The unverified dossier compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele claimed that Page, who has long advocated for a closer relationship between the U.S. and Russia, had ties to the Kremlin.

According to the Post, the FBI and the Justice Department convinced a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge that there was sufficient evidence suggesting that Page could be acting as a Russian agent to authorize electronic surveillance in the heat of the 2016 presidential race.

Page has repeatedly denied allegations that he colluded with the Russians, and the White House did not issue a response to the Post's report, though members of the Trump administration have recently tried to minimize Page's contributions to the campaign, characterizing his role as brief and informal.

The FBI and the Department of Justice also declined to comment.

Last week, ABC News reported that Page had been targeted for recruitment as an intelligence source in 2013 by Russian spies promising favors in return for business opportunities in Russia. Page acknowledged that he was the anonymous "Male-1" identified in an unsealed FBI complaint detailing the spies' attempts to gather "economic intelligence" from Page and others to send back to Moscow.

Page, who cooperated with the FBI's investigation of the spies (one of whom, Evgeny Buryakov, was arrested, imprisoned and recently deported) told ABC News that any information he passed to the Russians was "immaterial."

Any information I could give is, again, immaterial and all public information, he said during a break in a New York energy conference.

ABC News' Jack Date contributed to this report.

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Former Trump adviser Carter Page claims Obama targeted him as a 'dissident' - ABC News

New York Times

For Obama, Syria Chemical Attack Shows Risk of 'Deals With Dictators' New York Times After last week, even former Obama aides assume that he will have to rethink that passage in his memoir. More than 80 civilians were killed in what Western analysts called a sarin attack by Syrian forces a chilling demonstration that the agreement ... Susan Rice's claim that Obama got Syria to 'verifiably give up its chemical weapons stockpile'Washington Post Assad's chemical strike exposes the foolishness of Obama's Iran dealNew York Post Obama official: 'We always knew' Assad kept some chemical weaponsWashington Examiner TheBlaze.com -CNN -Fox News all 17,662 news articles »

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For Obama, Syria Chemical Attack Shows Risk of 'Deals With Dictators' - New York Times

Temperature 82 degrees with occasional clouds, and lagoon waters, clear as paradisethe Obamas are wrapping up their month-long vacation in French Polynesia.

On Sunday, Tahiti television station TNTV revealedphotos of Michelle Obama paddleboardingwhile theBarack swam in a Polynesian lagoon.

The pictures were takenon the island of Moorea by fellow vacationers,who spotted the laid-back couple using a small boat for a late morning excursion. They wereescorted by two other boats with their security detail, the station says.

Earlier last week, the former presidentwas seen snorkeling around the outer atoll of Fakarava.

True to his reputation, he was very relaxed, the report says. The former first couple posed for selfies with anyone who asked, though his entourage insisted the photographs beonly for private use, TNTV reports.

The couple have been staying out of the public eye at The Brando, the super-private luxury hotel on Tetiaroa, the South Pacific island bought in 1967 by Marlon Brando as a personal retreat.

Obamais working on his White House memoirs while relaxing at the ultra-private South Pacific resort which boasts white sand beaches, natural forest, and a sea tortoise reserve, the Washington Post reports.

Stressing Brandos desire for an eco-preserving environment, the resort is powered by solar energy and coconut oil. Each of its 35 villas is air conditioned by a sea water system and each has its own private beach and pool.

Voted Best Resort In The World by Cond Nast Traveler in 2016, rates at The Brandorun $2,750 to $13,000 per night. In November, Leonardo DiCaprio celebrated his birthday in the hotel.

Obama was invited to visit French Polynesia by the island nations president, Edouard Fritch, during a White House encounter in August 2016.

Following their post-White Housevacation with Richard Branson in the British Virgin Islands and a March stopover in Hawaii, the Obamas headed to French Polynesia on March 15.

Local authorities refused comment when the Obamas Gulfstream G550 jet touched down on Tahiti at Faaa Airport, March 15, and the former presidents visit to the capital island was brief, involving a quick transfer to much smaller aircraft.

The Brando, 35 miles from Tahiti, is reachable only by two-engined Air Tetiaroa planes or by boat.

Upon return, the former president is expected to resume a somewhat more active schedule. Plans have been announced for him to address a charity dinner in Scotlandon May 26, the British press had reported.

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Barack and Michelle Obama Leave Tahiti as They Continue Post-White House Tropical Tour - PEOPLE.com

Under a rarely used law, lawmakers have voted to repeal more than a dozen regulations enacted in the last six months of the Obama administration. denis_pc/Getty Images/iStockphoto hide caption

Under a rarely used law, lawmakers have voted to repeal more than a dozen regulations enacted in the last six months of the Obama administration.

President Trump and congressional Republicans are having some success with one of their oft-stated goals rolling back federal regulations approved during the Obama administration. But the clock is ticking.

The House and Senate have voted to repeal more than a dozen regulations approved in the final six months of Obama's presidency, among them:

In all, 11 regulations have been overturned using The Congressional Review Act, a heretofore obscure law passed by Congress in 1996. It allows lawmakers to overturn any regulation imposed during the final six months of the previous administration, with a simple majority vote in each chamber of Congress. It had only been used once previously, to overturn an ergonomics regulation by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that had been approved during the Clinton administration.

The 2016 election brought with it a perfect recipe for use of the law in the early months of the Trump administration: single-party control of both Congress and the White House, and a pro-deregulation stance following an administration that put many regulations in place.

But there are some time limits. The deadline has already passed for Congress to introduce any new rollback proposals, and lawmakers have only a few weeks left to act on the ones now in the pipeline.

Two regulations, relating to women's health and state retirement savings plans, have been repealed by both the House and the Senate and are awaiting the president's signature.

And two more have been approved by the House but have not yet been acted on by the Senate.

The Congressional Review Act gives lawmakers 60 legislative days to repeal regulations approved in the last six months of the previous administration. So that comes out to May 9, according to one estimate. The problem for Congress is that lawmakers are now on a two-week recess, and when they return, major work lies ahead on agreeing to a spending bill for the remainder of the current fiscal year. So it's unclear how many more regulatory repeals they will be able to squeeze in.

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Congress Is Using A 1996 Law To Repeal Some Obama - NPR - NPR

By Colleen Shalby

April 10, 2017

It started with a string of Saturday morning tweets. From his weekend retreat in Florida, President Trump lashed out at his predecessor, igniting a chain of events that veered between tragedy and farce. U.S. intelligence agencies, former Obama administration officials, Americas closest foreign ally and one of Trumps most ardent congressional supporters would be swept up in the drama. And there are no signs its over.

Saturday, March 4:

In the early hours of March 4, the president went on Twitter.

By various accounts, his mood was sour.

It was just two days after news reports revealed that Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions had twice met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 campaign. The disclosure was embarrassing, to say the least, since Sessions had testified at his Senate confirmation hearing that he had not met with any Russian officials. Bowing to an outcry on Capitol Hill, Sessions recused himself from the Justice Department investigation into Russian interference in the election.

The president was peeved that the Sessions news had eclipsed his well-received address to a joint session of Congress a few days earlier.

A disgruntled Trump on Twitter: an explosive combination. In four tweets just minutes apart, he alternated between denying any collusion with Russia and accusing President Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower during the campaign.

Then Trump took a break from social media to get in some golf. He seemed relaxed while greeting supporters outside his Mar-a-Lago resort. But his tweets had unleashed a whirlwind.

Politicians from both parties called on Trump to explain his accusation or retract it. FBI Director James B. Comey pressed his bosses at the Justice Department to publicly reject Trumps claims. They did not. Trump, meanwhile, asked the House and Senate intelligence committees both busy investigating the possible Russian connection to his campaign to look into his wiretapping claim too.

This is McCarthyism, Trump tweeted. Then he invoked the scandal that brought down President Nixon.

March 13:

Pressed to produce proof for Trumps accusation, his aides struggled to explain what he meant. Their statements offered little clarity. Asked whether she believed Trump Tower had been bugged, Kellyanne Conway, the presidents senior counselor, riffed on the vast reach of surveillance. The government, she said, can spy on citizens through their phones and televisions. Not even kitchens are secure, she suggested. There are microwave ovens that turn into cameras.

The House and Senate intelligence committees had asked the Justice Department to produce any information it had to support Trumps allegation by March 13. When the deadline came, the department said it needed more time.

At this point, the story could have quietly faded away. Instead, it took another stranger-than-fiction twist.

March 15:

I don't think there was an actual tap of Trump Tower, the House Intelligence Committee chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes, told reporters. Clearly the president was wrong.

The Tulare Republican went on to say that it was possible the president and his associates were swept up in a broader surveillance.

More on that later.

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March 16-17

The White House tried to defend the president by blaming Britain.

Press Secretary Sean Spicer said reporters looking for evidence to support the wiretapping claim should check out a report by Fox News commentator Andrew Napolitano, a former New Jersey judge. Napolitano said three sources told him that Obama had dodged U.S. restrictions on surveillance by having Britains Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) spy on Trump. The British intelligence agency called the allegation nonsense and utterly ridiculous.

Trump tried to distance himself from the commotion the next day but without apologizing to the Brits.

All we did was quote a certain very talented legal mind who was the one responsible for saying that on television, he said. You shouldnt be talking to me. You should be talking to Fox.

Napolitanos colleague, Fox News anchor Shepard Smith, disavowed the report, saying the network had no evidence to back it up. Napolitano then disappeared from the Fox lineup for a time. It didnt help his credibility when Larry Johnson, a former CIA officer turned conspiracy theorist, said that he was one of Napolitanos sources and that the former judge mischaracterized what he told him.

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March 20

The start of House Intelligence Committee hearings put Russia back in the spotlight. On the same day that Trump dismissed the issue as fake news, Comey and National Security Agency Director Michael S. Rogers testified for more than five hours. With TV cameras rolling, the FBI director confirmed that his agency was investigating Russian interference in the election, including possible collusion by the Trump campaign, and both he and Rogers said they knew of no evidence to support Trumps allegation that Obama had wiretapped him.

March 22

Comeys testimony had put another dent in Trumps credibility. He had essentially called the president a liar, and Democratic politicians and liberal commentators were making the most of it.

To make matters worse, news surfaced that onetime Trump campaign Chairman Paul Manafort had worked for a Russian billionaire to advance Russian President Vladimir Putins agenda.

Then along came something to change the narrative courtesy of Nunes.

The House Intelligence Committee chairman held an impromptu news conference to make an explosive allegation: U.S. intelligence officials, he said, had intercepted communications involving Trumps transition team. He had seen the evidence with own eyes, he said, and the intercepted communications had nothing to do with Russia.

Nunes, who had worked on Trumps transition team, said he was alarmed by what hed seen and felt compelled to go to the White House and tell Trump about it in person. The president needs to know these intelligence reports are out there, he said.

Nunes hurried from the Capitol to the White House to brief the president, then held another news conference about the briefing.

Trump said later he felt somewhat vindicated.

But Nunes hadnt told the whole story.

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March 23

With reporters scrutinizing his White House visit and Democrats sharply questioning its propriety, Nunes began to change his story. He said he had learned about surveillance summaries, but had not seen any, and that it was possible that no Trump aides had been the subjects of surveillance. Their names could have appeared in intelligence reports simply because foreign figures under surveillance were talking about them. Whats more, he apologized for going public with sensitive information before sharing it with his own committee.

Then the story took another turn. Or rather, a car ride.

A nighttime White House meeting

On March 21, the night before he dropped his bombshell, it turned out that Nunes had been riding in an Uber with a congressional staffer when he received a message. Nunes had abruptly gotten out of the car and headed for an unknown destination. Rep. Adam B. Schiff, Nunes fellow Californian and the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called it a midnight run. News leaks suggested that Nunes had visited the White House to obtain the alarming information on which he briefed the White House the following day.

The source could not simply put the documents in a backpack and walk them over to the House Intelligence Committee space.

Nunes spokesman Jack Langer

March 24

Nunes abruptly canceled a public hearing, scheduled for March 28, at which former acting Atty. Gen. Sally Yates, former Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan were to testify before the House Intelligence Committee.

Nunes said he wanted to give Comey and Rogers time to address the committee in private first. Schiff sensed a different motive.

He said it looked like Nunes had postponed the hearing to protect the White House.

We dont welcome cutting off public access to information, Schiff said. I think that there must have been a very strong pushback from the White House.

Three days later, Schiff called on Nunes to recuse himself from the Russia investigation.

March 27

Nunes spokesman Jack Langer confirmed that the congressman had gone to the White House complex the night before he briefed Trump. Nunes had rushed there to meet with a source. Langer didnt say whom.

The information comprised executive branch documents that have not been provided to Congress, he said by email. Because of classification rules, the source could not simply put the documents in a backpack and walk them over to the House Intelligence Committee space.

Any thought that this explanation would put matters to rest was mistaken.

March 30

The New York Times reported that Nunes sources for the intelligence reports were two White House officials Ezra Cohen-Watnick, senior director for intelligence at the National Security Council, and Michael Ellis, a lawyer in the White House counsel's office.

At his daily news briefing, Spicer would neither confirm nor deny the report.

Later that day, the White House sent a letter to ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, inviting them to view newly discovered classified materials. To Democrats, it looked like an effort to quiet the controversy over Nunes conduct by letting both committees see what Nunes had already seen.

Why all the cloak-and-dagger stuff? asked Schiff.

April 1-4

Going on Twitter once again, Trump trumpeted reports he had heard on Fox News.

Trumps transition team members had been spied on, and a senior Obama administration official had tried to unmask their identities, Fox reported. The network suggested the attempted unmasking was improper, an abuse of authority for political purposes.

Unmasking itself is legal and not uncommon within the intelligence community. An official with the appropriate security clearance can ask to know the identity of an anonymous person mentioned in an intelligence report when its necessary to understand the information in the report. Its not the same as making the persons name public.

The latest villain in this saga? Obamas national security advisor, Susan Rice. She had previously pushed back against Trumps wiretap claims, saying that nothing of the sort had occurred. Now, Trump and the conservative media were accusing her of unmasking people improperly.

The allegations were first reported by Mike Cernovich, a conspiracy theorist, blogger and self-described American nationalist. Cernovich had been an ardent backer of the Pizzagate theory an online hoax that tied Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to a child-trafficking ring supposedly operating from a Washington, D.C., pizzeria called Comet Ping Pong.

After Cernovichs report on Rice and her alleged unmasking of innocents, Donald Trump Jr. chimed in to say the blogger deserved a Pulitzer Prize. Trump Jr. was not Cernovichs only admirer in the White House. A day earlier, Conway had tweeted out a link to a 60 Minutes interview with Cernovich.

April 5

In an interview with MSNBC, Rice denied the allegations. She said she never unmasked anyone for political reasons and never leaked the name of anyone who had been unmasked nor had she ever leaked any classified information, period.

But Trump wasnt letting up.

In an interview with the New York Times, the president said Rice might be guilty of a crime, without citing any evidence. He couldnt understand why the mainstream media werent all over it.

The Russia story is a total hoax, he said. There has been absolutely nothing coming out of that.

April 6

The House Intelligence Committee chairman stunned Washington with the announcement that he was stepping aside from the Russia investigation because he himself was under investigation. The House Ethics Committee, in a separate announcement, said it was looking into allegations that Nunes had improperly disclosed classified material the same material involved in his nighttime White House meeting.

With Nunes sidelined, Rep. K. Michael Conaway (R-Texas) will lead the intelligence committees Russia inquiry, with help from Reps. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) and Tom Rooney (R-Fla.).

Conaway made headlines in January when he suggested that Russian interference in the 2016 election wasnt such a big deal, given that Mexican celebrities had appeared in Nevada to help get out the Latino vote for Democratic candidates.

Those are foreign actors, foreign people, influencing the vote in Nevada, Conaway told the Dallas Morning News. You dont hear the Democrats screaming and saying one word about that.

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The news was focused on Russia. Then Trump accused Obama of spying on his campaign. - Los Angeles Times