Embattled FBI Lawyer Lisa Page Calls It Quits, Tenders Her Resignation
Lisa Page, the embattled FBI lawyer whose anti-Donald Trump text messages earned her both scrutiny and infamy, officially tendered her resignation to the bureau on Friday, The Daily Caller News Foundation reported.
An FBI spokesperson told Fox News that Page had resigned to “pursue other opportunities.”
Page’s text messages with her alleged lover, FBI agent Peter Strzok, have come under significant scrutiny since their existence was first revealed last year.
In the messages, Page and Strzok revealed undisguised enmity for the man who would become president and often cryptically discussed matters relating to the Hillary Clinton email probe and the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s alleged ties to Russia, both of which they worked on.
“God Hillary should win 100,000,000 – 0,” one text from Strzok to Page in March of 2016 read.
“Also did you hear (Trump) make a comment about the size of his d— earlier? This man can not be president,” Page told Strzok later in the conversation.
As the campaign went on and the two began working on investigating the possibility of collusion between the Russian government and Trump’s campaign, their texts became more cryptic.
“I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in (Andrew McCabe’s) office — that there’s no way (Trump) gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk,” one heavily-scrutinized Strzok-to-Page text from August 2016 reads.
“It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”
That “insurance policy” remark became a target for lawmakers and pundits, particularly since it came shortly after FBI Director James Comey had announced charges wouldn’t be pursued against Hillary Clinton for mishandling classified information on her private email server. Page was one of Comey’s advisers at the time.
Things got even more heated on Election Day 2016.
“OMG THIS IS F—ING TERRIFYING,” Page wrote in one Election Day text.
“F Trump,” Strzok later texted.
And the controversies just kept on coming. Back in March, The Federalist obtained texts in which Page and Strzok talked about arranging a discreet meeting with FISC Judge Rudolph Contreras, a friend of Strzok’s who was handling the guilty plea in the case of former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
“Rudy is on the (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court)!” a July 25, 2016 text from Page to Strzok read. “Did you know that? Just appointed two months ago.”
“I did,” Strzok replied. “I need to get together with him, … (He) said he’d gotten on a month or two ago at a graduation party we were both at.”
The two then devised a dinner party to meet Contreras at, as a meeting with just the two agents would likely require Contreras to recuse himself from all matters involving Strzok.
“(REDACTED) suggested a social setting with others would probably be better than a one on one meeting,” Strzok told Page. “I’m sorry, I’m just going to have to invite you to that cocktail party.”
“Have to come up with some other work people cover for action,” Strzok continued.
“Why more?” Page said. “Six is a perfectly fine dinner party.”
While it’s unknown whether or not the dinner party ever happened, Contreras was mysteriously recused from the case just days before Flynn’s guilty plea on making false statements to investigators was set to be entered. Sources also told The Federalist that the text messages had been deliberately hidden from Congress.
Page was also involved in the inspector general’s investigation which resulted in the Andrew McCabe firing, as she was the official the former deputy director of the FBI instructed to speak to The Wall Street Journal regarding the Clinton email case. That liaison with the media — as well as McCabe’s lack of candor to investigators about it — led to the deputy director’s controversial dismissal just hours from his retirement.
Page showed up again in the controversial memo released by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, in which it was noted that her text messages with Strzok “reflect extensive discussions about the (Clinton) investigation, orchestrating leaks to the media, and include a meeting with Deputy Director McCabe to discuss an ‘insurance’ policy against President Trump’s election.”
Page had only worked briefly on the Mueller investigation, returning to her role as a counselor to McCabe just weeks later. Strzok, meanwhile, continued until July 28, 2017. That was when the Department of Justice’s inspector general notified Mueller of the texts, which led to Strzok’s removal from the special counsel investigation and exile to the FBI’s human resources division.
At least partially due to Strzok and Page’s text messages, some Republicans on Capitol Hill have called for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to appoint a special prosecutor to look into bias at the DOJ and the FBI.
“They cannot be counted on to investigate themselves,” Sen. Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican and one of the lawmakers calling for the prosecutor, stated back in March. “If you do something wrong, you don’t have the fox guard the chicken house.”
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