Ex-FBI lawyer Lisa Page’s testimony in a closed-door session at the House on Monday was eye opening — and she turned Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s entire investigation on it’s head with five simple words.
After defying a House subpoena last week, Page finally agreed to appear in a closed door meeting with investigators. What she said about the anti-Trump text messages between her and her former lover and colleague, Peter Strzok, was exactly what American voters had suspected.
According to Page, the text messages implying that senior FBI officials had a plan to stop Trump’s administration “mean exactly what they say.”
Her testimony was a direct contradiction to Strzok, who screamed at lawmakers Thursday over questions about the anti-Trump bias in the investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
The text messages –which included promises such as “we’d stop Trump” — were “in no way — unequivocally — any suggestion that me, [or] the FBI, would take any action whatsoever to improperly impact the electoral process for any candidate,” Strzok claimed Thursday.
Page said the opposite on Monday, a major blow to the credibility of the investigation Trump has frequently labeled a political witch hunt.
“I think there are significant differences between their testimony about important material facts. She gave us a lot of new information that we didn’t have before. That will lead us to ask for some more people to make some more requests for information we do not yet have,” Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe, a Republican, told reporters. “On many cases, she admits that the text messages mean exactly what they say as opposed to agent Strzok, who thinks all misinterpreted his own words on any text message that might be negative.”
https://twitter.com/joshdcaplan/status/1019210520979755008
“She has given us more insights to who was involved in what. She’s a more contrite person,” Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Republican, told Fox News. “But make no mistake … she’s a Democrat. She wanted Hillary to win, and she did not want Trump to win. That’s been obvious.”
“I think she has been as forthcoming as she can,” Ratcliffe said. “I think she is trying to respect the real privileges that exist from her former employer, and she is getting direction from FBI counsel about not answering certain things and she is trying to respect that. At the same time, I think she is trying to give us as much information as she’s allowed to do, which I think is a distinction and difference from what we saw with Peter Strzok.”
“Agent Strzok had Hillary Clinton winning the White House before he finished investigating her,” South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy, a Republican and the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said after his testimony Thursday. “Agent Strzok had Donald Trump impeached before he even started investigating him. That is bias.”
Just after noon, Peter Strzok actually denied that his text messages expressing disdain for Trump were “indicative of bias.” He actually said that.
— Brit Hume (@brithume) July 12, 2018
Page’s testimony was far more “credible,” Gowdy said.
Lawmakers say that has opened more doors into the House investigation into bias, and allows them to move on to more senior FBI officials.
“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. (King James Bible, John. 8.32)”
— The Horn editorial team