Lisa Page, a 39-year-old former
FBI lawyer whose text messages with colleague Peter Strzok have made her a frequent, persistent punching bag for President Trump and his Republican allies, is "done being quiet."
Why is Page breaking her silence now, nearly two years after The Washington Post first disclosed that the Justice Department inspector general was investigating her and, more gallingly, that she and Strzok had an affair? First, she told The Daily Beast's Molly Jong-Fast in an interview published late Sunday, she is finally free to talk, 18 months after leaving the FBI. The inspector general is also reportedly about to finally exonerate her of allegations she acted unprofessionally or showed bias against Trump in the Russia investigation. But mostly, Page said, she is tired of
Donald Trump's abuse, especially after he used her name in a simulated orgasm at an Oct. 11 rally in Minneapolis.
"Honestly, his demeaning fake orgasm was really the straw that broke the camel's back," Page said. "I had stayed quiet for years hoping it would fade away, but instead it got worse. ... It had been so hard not to defend myself, to let people who hate me control the narrative. I decided to take my power back." Trump has accused her of everything up to and including treason, and while those attacks are "very intimidating," "sickening," and "like being punched in the gut," she said, "I know there's no fathomable way that I have committed any crime at all, let alone treason."
Page said she's saddest about the politicization of the FBI and Justice Department, and she cited one example. A week or two after the Post story, "the Justice Department spokesperson, Sarah Flores, calls the beat reporters into the Justice Department ... to provide a cherry-picked selection of my text messages to review and report on in advance of [Deputy Attorney General] Rod Rosenstein going to the Hill the next morning," she said. "I can tell you that the reporters there that night were told that they weren't allowed to source them to the Justice Department, and that they weren't allowed to copy or remove them, just take notes." Flores, who now works for CNN, referred questions to the Justice Department, which declined a request for comment. Read the entire Page interview at The Daily Beast.