Former FBI lawyer, Lisa Page, whose “fuck the fat orange guy running for president” text messages with another FBI employee were leaked to the media, is suing the Justice Department and the FBI for being messy AF.
From CBS News:
Her attorneys argue in the suit that the revelation of her text messages violates the Privacy Act, which bars “disclosing a covered record ‘about’ an individual unless an exception applies or the individual who is the subject of the record consents in writing to the disclosure.”
The Justice Department declined on Tuesday to comment on the lawsuit.
About 375 of Page’s text messages with former FBI agent Peter Strzok, who led the FBI’s probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was Secretary of State, were released in December 2017. In the texts, exchanged during the presidential campaign, the two often expressed distaste for Mr. Trump.
Strzok calls Mr. Trump “awful” and “an idiot” in one exchange with Page, with whom he was having an extramarital affair. Page, in one text in July 2016, wrote of Mr. Trump, “He’s not ever going to become president, right? Right?”
The lawsuit claims that the Justice Department inspector general obtained the text messages in December 2017 as part of an internal investigation into whether the FBI was pro-Clinton when looking into her email server.
According to CBS News, the FBI IG reviewed “text messages that had been sent and received on FBI-issued cell phones by employees involved in the probe, including those of Page and Strzok. The June 2018 IG report said that it questioned whether Strzok had taken actions in the Clinton email investigation ‘based on his political views,’ but ultimately found that he was not the ‘sole decision maker’ for the investigative decisions that were examined.”
What’s been left out of the story is that Strzok and Page were actually pushing for “more aggressive measures” in the Clinton email probe. The Office of the Inspector General found that political bias didn’t affect the investigation, but that didn’t matter, because an affair that included some Trump bashing-text messages has become the soundbite that Trump can’t let go of.
In fact, on Tuesday, Trump told a group of his followers—without one shred of evidence— that Page had a restraining order taken out against him.
From the Daily Beast:
“So FBI lawyer Lisa Page was so in love she didn’t know what the hell was happening,” Trump blared. “Texted the head of counterintelligence Peter Strzok, likewise so in love he couldn’t see straight! This poor guy. Did I hear he needed a restraining order after this whole thing to keep him away from Lisa? That’s what I heard. I don’t know if it’s true. The fake news will never report it, but it could be true.”
After pointing out the reporters gathered in the back so the audience could loudly boo them, the president continued to make the baseless claim that a restraining order was put in place. At the same time, Trump gave a contorted explanation of the alleged restraining order.
“Now that’s what I heard, I don’t know,” he added. “I mean, who could believe a thing like that? No, I heard Peter Strzok needed a restraining order to keep him away from his once lover. Lisa, I hope you miss him. Lisa, he will never be the same.”
Page’s lawsuit basically argues that the couple became collateral damage in an attempt for the DOJ to cozy up to the President as the text messages were released to garner favor with Trump, who had grown weary of the DOJ and then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Since the release of the text messages, Page’s attorneys claim that she’s been the target of the White House and the President who enjoys water sports with Backpage Russian prostitutes “in more than 40 tweets and dozens of interviews, press conferences, and statements.”