Carter Page was not the only Trump campaign adviser secretly wiretapped by the FBI using fraudulently obtained surveillance warrants. Newly declassified documents reveal that Walid Phares — a Lebanese American scholar and counterterrorism expert who advised Donald Trump on Middle East policy during the 2016 campaign — was placed under electronic surveillance for a full twelve months between 2017 and 2018, as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation.
And as in Page's case, the FBI withheld evidence that exonerated Phares from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in order to secure and renew the spy authorization — a pattern of misconduct that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) says "details substantial allegations of misconduct and political bias occurring within Special Counsel Mueller's office."
"I had no idea any of this was happening," Phares told RealClearInvestigations in an exclusive interview. "This is shocking because they told my lawyer that I was only a 'witness' and that they just needed some information. But these were huge abuses that I can see now."
Phares, 68, says he intends to sue the FBI and the Justice Department for damages.
An Investigation Built on Nothing
The most damning aspect of the Phares case is not simply that the FBI spied on him — it is that they continued spying on him even after their own lead case agent concluded there was nothing to find. Investigators could find "nothing" criminal on Phares, according to the agent, and in fact concluded that the target had been entirely "honest" throughout the investigation.
"There were no corroborating facts that tied Crosswind to certain facts that we thought were originally true," the agent testified in a 2020 internal FBI review, using the codename assigned to the Phares investigation. He added that "nothing" gathered from Phares's communications under FISA surveillance, including phone messages and emails, "aided the investigation other than to prove the target was being honest with investigators."
In plain English: the FBI spied on a man for a year, found no evidence of wrongdoing, determined he was telling the truth — and kept spying on him anyway, while withholding from the surveillance court the very evidence that demonstrated his innocence.
The agent later described what he called a "let's get him" attitude among Mueller's prosecutors, noting that several members of the team shared an anti-Trump bias and had tacked up anti-Trump cartoons on the walls of their office — a detail that corroborates the broader pattern of political animus that has now been documented across multiple witnesses and investigations.
Clinesmith Strikes Again
When Mueller's team applied for the fourth and final surveillance warrant against Phares in 2018, the lead agent argued that the FISA court needed to be informed about how new evidence had changed investigators' understanding of the initial allegations. He proposed specific corrections to the warrant application. He was told no.
"I pointed out these specific corrections to the application in numerous instances throughout the FISA process," the agent said. "I sent these edits to Kevin Clinesmith, who said, 'We can't send this to DOJ.'"
The name Kevin Clinesmith should ring a bell. He is the same FBI attorney who later pleaded guilty to altering evidence in the FISA warrant application targeting Carter Page — changing the wording of an intelligence email that exonerated Page in order to reverse its meaning and secure a surveillance renewal. Page had not only never worked for Russia; he had previously worked with the CIA and FBI to help catch Russian spies.
In Phares's case, as in Page's, Clinesmith was the gatekeeper who ensured exculpatory evidence never reached the FISA court. That the same attorney played the same role in two separate warrant applications targeting two different Trump campaign advisers is not a coincidence — it is a pattern.
A False Allegation and a Ruined Career
Phares told RealClearInvestigations that the false allegations against him originated with a CIA report issued in 2016 — under CIA Director John Brennan, an Obama appointee — claiming that Phares had taken a $10 million bribe from the Egyptian government intended for the Trump campaign, during a trip to Cairo. That allegation was later disproven by investigators. The Mueller team proceeded with the FISA surveillance anyway.
Despite finding nothing criminal and determining Phares was honest throughout his interviews, the investigation wreaked havoc on his life. He lost his position at a university. He lost his Fox News contract as a terrorism and Middle East expert, which he had held since 2007. Wells Fargo canceled his bank accounts and credit card. He was effectively blacklisted from the Trump administration, unable to obtain the security clearance required for the high-level foreign policy position he had been expected to receive.
"It was like a disaster for me financially and physically," Phares said. "They scared the agencies from me so I would have problems with security clearance. They knew they had nothing on Russia, so they went after me on Egypt. But the main target was President Trump. They had to neutralize him and any of his associates who could carry out his agenda."
The investigation was closed in 2019. Phares was never charged with any crime.
Gaps in the Official Record
The Phares case raises uncomfortable questions not only about the Mueller team's conduct but about the thoroughness of the official investigations that were supposed to hold that team accountable. The year-long FISA surveillance of Phares appears to be absent from both DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report on FBI abuses in the Russia investigation and Special Counsel John Durham's subsequent review. How an entire FISA surveillance operation targeting a Trump campaign adviser escaped inclusion in either report remains unexplained.
It is also not yet known whether other Trump campaign officials — including Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, and George Papadopoulos — were subjected to similar FISA surveillance that has not yet been publicly disclosed.
What is known is that Brennan, whose CIA reportedly initiated the false allegations against Phares, is currently under federal grand jury investigation for his role in the broader Russiagate hoax. The DOJ is also building what sources describe as a "grand conspiracy" case against former Obama and Biden administration officials for allegedly committing political espionage against Trump and his advisers — manufacturing criminal investigations and depriving them of their constitutional rights under color of law.
Whether the Phares case is ultimately incorporated into that broader conspiracy investigation remains to be seen. But the pattern it represents is by now unmistakable: a team of politically motivated prosecutors and agents, shielded by a compliant FBI lawyer willing to withhold exculpatory evidence from the nation's most powerful surveillance court, systematically targeting the associates of a president they despised.
Senator Grassley has demanded that the DOJ provide his committee all FISA applications, predication materials, and related reporting from the Crosswind investigation. The American people are still learning the full extent of what was done in their name.
Walid Phares has stated his intention to sue the FBI and Department of Justice for damages. The FISA court subsequently invalidated some warrants against Carter Page, whose $75 million lawsuit against the FBI and DOJ is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court.
FBI Misled Court to Wiretap Second Trump Campaign Adviser, Declassified Documents Reveal
- by: Ben Martin
- 2026-03-24
- Source:
patriotuncensored.com
- 03/24/2026
