The woman who exchanged anti-Trump text messages with her FBI lover, who was dismissed from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, was seen for the first time since news of her affair was revealed.
Lisa Page, a lawyer for the FBI, looked somber in DailyMail.com’s exclusive photos as she was spotted leaving the home that she shares with her husband and children in Washington D.C. on Wednesday.
The 38-year-old registered Democrat wore all black and her hair was still wet when she left the residence carrying two bags moments after her husband Joseph Burrow, 40, pulling up his hood over his head, left the house with their son.
On Saturday, Page was exposed as being the lover of Peter Strzok, deputy head of counterintelligence at the FBI, after it was discovered they exchanged anti-Trump text messages, which led him to be reassigned to the FBI’s human resources department in August.
Strzok, according to the Washington Post, was a key player in the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state. He was also responsible for changing the wording in then FBI director James Comey’s assessment from ‘grossly negligent’ to ‘extremely careless,’ and the probe into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia in the 2016 election.
Page was also working on Mueller’s Russia probe for a short time but had already left the investigation when the text messages were discovered.
Lisa Page, who exchanged anti-Trump text messages with Peter Strzok, her FBI agent lover, was seen for the first time on Wednesday
Strzok (left) was dismissed from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe over the messages he sent to Page (right) and was relocated within the FBI
Page was also on Mueller’s Russia probe for a short time but had already left the investigation by the time the text messages were discovered
According to the Washington Post’s sources, the extramarital affair was problem enough, but the greater concern among senior law enforcement officials were the ‘text messages the two exchanged during the Clinton investigation and campaign season in which they expressed anti-Trump sentiments and other comments that appeared to favor Clinton.’
When approached by DailyMail.com as he was walking down the street alone, Page’s husband, an executive at a non-profit international education organization, refused to comment, shaking his head when asked about his wife’s text messages with Strzok.
Attempts to reach Lisa Page and Peter Strzok for comment were unsuccessful.
Burrow was still wearing his wedding ring, days after news of his wife’s affair was revealed to the public on Saturday.
Page attended Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University and graduated in the class of 2006. A statement from her on the college website, under the title ‘Lisa Page ’06: Living Her Dream’, reads: ‘Lisa Page ’06 always knew that she wanted to pursue a career in public service, and she figured that the path to her ideal job would be a winding one.
‘As a federal prosecutor at the U.S. Department of Justice, however, she skipped the scenic route and moved immediately from law school to her dream career. “Luckily for me,” she says, “it’s been as gratifying and fulfilling as I’d hoped.”‘
Megan Chalfant, Assistant Director, Law Alumni Affairs and Donor Relations at Moritz, said she was unable to comment to DailyMail.com but added that the college was preparing a statement.
Strzok is also married. The Georgetown University graduate is married to fellow alum Melissa Hodgman, who was promoted to Associate Director of the SEC’s Enforcement Division by Obama in late 2016.
The promotion came after the FBI found emails pertaining to the Hillary Clinton email server scandal on her aide Huma Abedin’s husband s laptop.
After news broke of her husband’s alleged bias in Mueller’s investigation, Hodgman scrubbed all evidence of her supporting Hillary Clinton from her social media, according to Gateway Pundit.
On Wednesday, the Department of Justice announced they would be handing over the messages to Congress. The department is currently going through more than 10,000 messages that span months between Page and Strzok, according to Fox News.
Page, 38, is married to Joseph Burrow, 40, (pictured together) and they have children
Burrow was seen pulling up his hood as he left home with the couple’s son on Wednesday morning
When reached at his townhouse by DailyMail.com, Page’s husband, Joseph Burrow, refused to comment but shook his head when asked about his wife’s text messages with Strzok and their effect on the Mueller investigation
Burrow, who works for a non-profit international education organization, was seen leaving the couple’s home
Strzok’s texts have been seized on by Republicans who were appalled that Clinton was cleared last July by Comey, who was later sacked by President Trump.
Strzok was among the top officials investigating Clinton and changed Comey’s description of her conduct from ‘grossly negligent’ – language that mirrors the criminal code – to the softer words ‘extremely careless.’
Strzok was also part of the team that quizzed disgraced former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn before he pleaded guilty to lying during that interview.
Strzok participated in the FBI’s sit-down interviews with two Clinton insiders linked to her email scandal, both of whom got a free pass despite making statements to agents that were later challenged by other records.
The email probe included question-and-answer sessions with several senior Clinton aides including lawyer Cheryl Mills and chief of staff Huma Abedin.
And when those two friends-of-Hillary sat down for their third-degree sessions, Strzok – the partisan anti-Trump agent – was asking many of the questions.
Mills and Abedin both denied knowing of Clinton’s unorthodox email server setup, according to summaries of their interviews that the Bureau released last year.
Strzok is also married. The Georgetown University graduate is married to fellow alum Melissa Hodgman (left and right), who was promoted to Associate Director of the SEC’s Enforcement Division by Obama in late 2016
Page and Strzok exchanged a thread of messages that ‘expressed anti-Trump sentiments and other comments that appeared to favor Clinton,’ an anonymous source revealed
Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe’s wife took campaign donations from a Clinton ally, the outgoing Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe. The FBI has pointed out that McCabe had no role in the Clinton investigation until months after his wife’s political campaign had concluded. But Page, the lawyer who exchanged anti-Trump texts with Strzok, was on McCabe’s staff
Burrow was still wearing his wedding ring, days after news of his wife’s affair was revealed to the public, while leaving his home with his son (pictured)
‘Mills did not learn Clinton was using a private server until after Clinton’s [State Department] tenure. Mills stated she was not even sure she knew what a server was at the time,’ one agent’s interview notes read.
And Abedin told agents, they wrote, that she ‘did not know that Clinton had a private server until about a year and a half ago when it became public knowledge.’
But in emails released by State, Mills and Abedin both referred to Clinton’s server specifically, The Daily Caller reported Monday.
Comey defended the Clinton aides’ contradictory statements when he testified in a House Judiciary Committee hearing about six weeks before the 2016 election.
‘Having done many investigations myself, there’s always conflicting recollections of facts – some of which are central, some of which are peripheral,’ Comey said then.
President Trump railed against Strzok’s actions on Sunday, as the Washington Post and New York Times reported that his text messages ‘expressed anti-Trump sentiments and other comments that appeared to favor Clinton.’
The FBI agent was already under scrutiny for changing James Comey’s (left) description of Hillary Clinton’s behavior in regards to her private email server then went to work for Mueller’s (right) Russia probe
President Trump latched onto news reports that said FBI agent Peter Strzok was pulled off the Mueller probe after anti-Trump text messages were found. Strzok was also a lead investigator on the Hillary Clinton email probe, with Trump now suggesting bias
ABC News had reported Strzok’s departure from the Russia probe in August, but without offering a reason.
Now the controversy could taint not one, but two of the biggest federal investigations in the last year.
‘Tainted (no, very dishonest?) FBI “agent’s role in Clinton probe under review,”‘ Trump tweeted Sunday morning. ‘Led Clinton Email probe. @foxandfriend Clinton money going to wife of another FBI agent in charge.’
The latter dig was meant for Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, whose wife took campaign donations from a Clinton ally, the outgoing Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe.
The FBI has pointed out that McCabe had no role in the Clinton investigation until months after his wife’s political campaign had concluded.
But Page, the lawyer who exchanged anti-Trump texts with Strzok, was on McCabe’s staff.
Trump went after Strzok again by writing, ‘Report: “ANTI-TRUMP FBI AGENT LED CLINTON EMAIL PROBE”‘
‘Now it all starts to make sense,’ Trump said.
FBI’S FORREST GUMP AND WHAT HE DID FOR CLINTON AND TRUMP
HILLARY’S SERVER PROBE
Peter Strzok was a key investigator into Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified intelligence when she was Secretary of State. Here is how his role affected the key players.
Huma Abedin: Cleared despite telling untruths
Hillary Clinton’s right-hand woman was interviewed by Strzok and questioned about her knowledge of the existence of Clinton’s secret server.
Strzok wrote a summary of the interview which said: ‘Abedin did not know that Clinton had a private server until about a year and a half ago when it became public knowledge.’
In fact Abedin had been involved in a series of email exchanges which demonstrated that she knew about the server, including one from an IT aide whihc said: ‘I had to shut down the server. Someone was trying to hack us…’
Cheryl Mills: Cleared despite telling untruths
Mills was chief of staff and counselor to Clinton when she was Secretary of State.
Strzok summarized the interview with her which he conducted in April 2016, saying: ‘Mills did not learn Clinton was using a private server until after Clinton’s tenure. Mills stated she was not even sure she knew what a server was at the time.’
In fact a series of emails from the time demonstrated that neither assertion by Mills could be true.
‘hrc email coming back — is server okay?’ Mills emailed to Justin Cooper, the IT aide in February 2010.
Despite that email, Strzok accepted that she did not know what a ‘server’ was at the time.
In August 2011 she received a email from Stephen Mull, a State Department IT official, which said Clinton had asked for a new Blackberry which was malfunctioning ‘possibly because of her personal email server is down’.
Abedin was also sent the email.
Hillary Clinton: Cleared her of criminal level gross negligence by removing term from critical Comey memo
Then FBI Director James Comey sent a message to three top officials in the bureau on May 2, 2016, summarizing the latest position on the Clinton probe.
It included the damning sentence: ‘There is evidence to support a conclusion that Secretary Clinton, and others, used the private email server in a manner that was grossly negligent with respect to the handling of classified material.’
The phrase ‘grossly negligent’ was critical as that is the standard which needs to be reached to bring a federal prosecution for mishandling classified intelligence. In other words, Comey was saying that she should be charged.
But the language was changed on June 10 and the phrase ‘grossly negligent’ replaced by Strozk with ‘extremely careless’ – below the standard for prosecution.
The memo then formed the basis for James Comey’s July statement on Clinton which said she would not be charged.
THE RUSSIA PROBE
After Robert Mueller was appointed Special Counsel to look into allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, Strzok was assigned to his team. He was removed when his anti-Trump texts to his mistress came to light. Here is what us known and what is still unknown of his actions
Mike Flynn: Oversaw interviews where he lied to FBI
Strzok was the official overseeing FBI interviews of Mike Flynn, the former general who was Trump’s first national security adviser.
It is unknown exactly how many times Flynn was interviewed by the FBI but he dramatically pleaded guilty last Friday to lying to the feds in an interview in January when he was still in office.
Flynn admitted lying about his dealings with Sergey Kislyak, then Russia’s ambassador to the U.S.
He was interviewed at least once more and now faces a sentence of up to five years in prison for his crime.
However it appears likely he will receive a far lighter sentence as he is a co-operating witness with the Mueller investigation and has even agreed to take part in covert evidence-gathering for the FBI.
Jared Kushner and other Trump officials: Did he oversee interviews and charges?
Mugshot: George Papadopolous, first Trump aide to plead guilty in the Mueller probe
As the FBI’s most senior counter-intelligence agent on the Mueller taskforce, it appears certain that Strzok would also have overseen the interviews it is known the FBI has conducted so far, but his involvement has not been confirmed.
One of those questioned by FBI agents includes Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law.
Others known or reported to have been interviewed include Hope Hicks, now Trump’s White House director of communications.
She had been his campaign spokeswoman and steamed his suits while he wore them on his plane.
Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign director, was interviewed by the FBI after his home was raided in a dramatic pre-dawn entry, and has now been charged with counts including conspiracy.
Also charged was Rick Gates, Manafort’s aide in the campaign and Manafort’s long-time right hand man.
And the first guilty plea in the Mueller probe was by George Papadopolous, a campaign aide who admitted lying to the FBI. Again Strzok’s role is still to be made public.