The "Kremlin Connection" email started the wiretaps on the Trump Campaign five months before the Carter Page warrant was approved
The FBI infiltrated the Trump Campaign for President with one email. It was called the "Kremlin Connection". It was sent to Trump's Campaign by Paul Erickson, an FBI informant.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1080766/download
This was five months before the FBI's Carter Page warrant was approved to do the same thing.
The source of the "Kremlin Connection" incident is the 99-page report called the "Report on Russian Active Measures dated March 22nd". It is linked here:
https://docs.house.gov/meetings/IG/IG00/20180322/108023/HRPT-115-2.pdf
It was written by nine Democratic Minority Members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, headed by Adam Schiff (D-CA).
A copy of Erickson's email is below.
Text of Paul Erickson's "Kremlin Connection" email dated May 10th, 2016
Erickson sent the email to Rick Dearborn, Senior Adviser to Jeff Sessions.
At the time, Sessions was a Senator from Alabama and part of the Trump Campaign for President.
When Donald J. Trump was elected President, Sessions quit the Senate to become his Attorney General.
Erickson said he could create "a back channel" to the Kremlin so that Donald J. Trump could communicate directly with Russian President Vladmir Putin.
Dearborn forwarded it on May 17, 2016 to Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, and Jared Kushner, all with the Trump Campaign for President.
https://docs.house.gov/meetings/IG/IG00/20180322/108023/HRPT-115-2.pdf
With special software, the FBI can wiretap anyone using only an email address and a person's phone number.
Although Sessions never received the "Kremlin Connection" email, the FBI could wiretap him too because his email address was in Dearborn's list of contacts.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/03/us/politics/trump-putin-russia-nra-campaign.html
The FBI admitted Paul Erickson is their informant in court documents filed earlier this month in an unrelated case.
Lee Schoenbeck called Erickson "the single biggest phony I’ve ever met in South Dakota politics. He's just a con man." Schoenbeck served in the S. Dakota House of Representatives.
In 1981, Erickson said he went to Nicaragua, Angola, Afghanistan and Laos to support "freedom fighters".
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB122055674088400849?mod=article_inline
Adam Schiff (D-CA)
Editor's note:
Judicial Watch obtained the Carter Page warrants ten days ago through a public information lawsuit. They are 412-pages and are linked here: