Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page arrives for a House Judiciary Committee deposition on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., July 13, 2018. (Leah Millis/Reuters)May 30, 2024 12:43 PM
Strzok and Page, who were engaging in an extramarital affair at the time, described Trump as an “idiot” and a “loathsome human” in a series of texts sent during the 2016 election. The two also called the possibility of a Trump victory “terrifying.” In one text exchange, Strzok even vowed to “stop” Trump from getting elected.
The messages, which were sent on bureau-issued phones, were leaked to the news media by DOJ officials, prompting Strzok’s termination and Page’s resignation in 2018. Both filed federal lawsuits a year later.
The settlement, which must still be approved by a judge, resolves Page’s five-year-old lawsuit against the DOJ and FBI, alleging the agencies violated her right to privacy by leaking the anti-Trump texts. Page sought $1,000 in compensation for damages.
Strzok’s lawsuit, in which he sued the DOJ to receive back pay and get his job back, remains unsettled. He claimed the FBI caved to political pressure from Trump when the law-enforcement agency fired him, while arguing his First Amendment and due-process rights were violated in the process.
A brief court filing disclosed the tentative deal, withholding any specific terms of agreement. Page and the DOJ have until June 28 to reach a final settlement.
Strzok and Page were involved in the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into Russian collusion with Trump’s presidential campaign ahead of the 2016 election. They also played roles on special counsel Robert Mueller’s team until the texts were discovered. Strzok previously served as a top FBI counterintelligence agent, and Page was an FBI lawyer at the time.
Strzok previously claimed that the opinions expressed in the texts were sent “out of deep patriotism” for the U.S. Meanwhile, Page said the messages were only made public to politically benefit then-attorney general Jeff Sessions, whom Trump criticized at the time for recusing himself from overseeing the Russia investigation after failing to report interactions with a Russian official during the 2016 campaign.
The DOJ has argued that it was allowed to release the text exchanges to the media and larger public, considering they were already disclosed to members of Congress.
Trump called the romantic pair “FBI lovebirds” during his rallies.
The term sparked production for a live play, titled “FBI Lovebirds:
UnderCovers,” at CPAC 2020. Based on the text messages that criticized
Trump, the performance starred actors Dean Cain and Kristy Swanson as
Strzok and Page, respectively. [SOURCE]
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