Lisa Page Plays the Victim Card Ahead of IG Report Release

Former FBI counsel Lisa Page, famous for exchanging anti-Trump text messages with a Bureau colleague and paramour, recently sat down for an interview with The Daily Beast – a left-wing political website. The interview, published Dec. 1, indicates that Page apparently attended the same victimhood classes as many of her fellow disgraced former FBI associates.

It is telling that Page, who resigned as FBI counsel, displays the same characteristics as her former lover FBI agent Peter Strzok, as well as former FBI Director James Comey, and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. Each, since losing his job, has exhibited in common an inflated sense of self-worth; an easily bruised ego; indignation that he is questioned, doubted, or accused of wrongdoing; and a tendency to portray himself as a victim to avoid answering for his conduct.

This should all be of great concern since it suggests there is a culture in the senior ranks of the Bureau – if not among thousands of dedicated field agents – of preening self-indulgence, of lack of self-awareness, and of being above the law and certainly above criticism.

Motive Behind the Interview

Page told Daily Beast reporter Molly Jong-Fast that it was Trump’s mockery of her and Strzok during one of his rallies, back in October, that pushed her to speak publicly. At that rally, the president ad-libbed a fictional version of a text message exchange between the two former FBI officials. It was a performance in which Trump affected passionate tones as he mimicked Page and Strzok in conversation. “Honestly,” Page told Jong-Fast, “[Trump’s] demeaning fake orgasm was really the straw that broke the camel’s back.” In fact, the president was not attempting to caricature an orgasm but simply to mock the manner in which lovers might converse.

It seems far more likely that the impending release of the Department of Justice Inspector General’s report on FBI misconduct relating to the 2016 presidential election – now just days away – was Page’s motivation for speaking out now. She is trying, perhaps, to get ahead of what may be revealed and preparing her own defense for the court of public opinion.

“It’s almost impossible to describe,” Page said in the interview, putting on the victim act already demonstrated by Strzok, Comey, and McCabe. “It’s like being punched in the gut. My heart drops to my stomach when I realize he has tweeted about me again. The president of the United States is calling me names to the entire world. He’s demeaning me and my career. It’s sickening.”

Never mind that Trump has neither called Page names nor demeaned her career. He has done nothing more than remind people that the former Bureau attorney and her cohorts discussed an “insurance policy” against the eventuality of Trump winning the 2016 election. Never mind that Page did not feel bad when Strzok texted her that he could smell Trump supporters in Walmart, or that the two officials frequently heaped abuse on the man who was, despite their efforts, to become president.

As Page recounted her personal take on the events surrounding the FBI’s counterintelligence operation primarily targeting the Trump campaign, it is almost jaw-dropping to notice that she is unaware that the FBI’s “predication” for its investigation was based upon hearsay and disinformation. Either that or she still harbors the secret shared by all those involved in the Russia-collusion hoax: that it was a set-up, a sting operation to create a series of events that could then be used to justify going after Trump and his campaign.

Two predictions about the IG report can be made with certainty: It will not entirely exonerate the nation’s premier law enforcement agency of wrongdoing, and it will not compel the Department of Justice to bring criminal charges against former senior FBI officials. Unlike the president, intent is not enough to convict these deep-state types. As much as they hated Trump and wanted to keep him out of the White House, they failed to do so; in the eyes of their fellow deep staters charged with investigating the matter, no crimes, therefore, were committed.

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Read more from Graham J Noble.