On Monday night, Carter Page was finally ready for his Fox News close-up. It had been nearly a year since he began his one-man public-relations offensive to rebut accusations that, as a Trump campaign adviser, he colluded with Russia. He had appeared numerous times on CNN, MSNBC and the networks, typically opposite their star anchors. Unlike almost everyone else caught up in the Trump-Russia scandal, Page was not only willing to submit to public questions; he would even answer them. Though he didn’t bring much clarity to his role, the appearances did make for great, albeit surreal, television. Like the time he insisted to Anderson Cooper that his conversation with the Russian ambassador during the Republican National Convention was not actually a “meeting.” “Anderson,” Page explained, “a great analogy is you and I were members of the same health club here in New York previously. And I remember walking by you, even though we didn’t know each other, and I said, ‘Hi, Anderson,’ and you said hello, and we, you know, had a nice little exchange for half a second. Now, does that to you constitute a meeting?”

But for all the media stardom these and other interviews brought Page, he had been essentially given a cold shoulder by Fox News; he hadn’t appeared on the network since a few cameos in March and April. When I met with Page late last year for a story for the magazine, his absence from Fox’s airwaves seemed to gnaw at him even more than the considerable distance that Trump’s advisers had sought to put between him and the president. After all, Page understood why Trump wouldn’t want to be associated with him: Page viewed himself, as he put it last year, “the biggest embarrassment surrounding the campaign.” But Fox was another matter. Considering how roughly he was treated by the mainstream media, he assumed that Fox would have come to his aid. Besides, Page’s father was a devoted Fox viewer, and it would have been nice if he could have watched his son on his favorite shows.

So it was understandable why Page’s wide, goofy smile was even wider and goofier than usual on Monday night when he appeared on Laura Ingraham’s prime-time show on Fox News. Page was there to give his first interview since House Republicans, three days earlier, released a memo, written by Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee, alleging that the F.B.I. had improperly spied on Page in an attempt to harm Trump’s presidential campaign.

“Carter, it’s good to see you tonight,” Ingraham told Page, teeing up a softball. “I know you have not spoken out about this House Intel memo yet or the reaction to it. What is your reaction?”