Trump lashes out after ex-FBI lawyer Lisa Page hired as MSNBC analyst

President Trump was incredulous after MSNBC announced that it had hired former FBI lawyer Lisa Page as a legal analyst.

“You must be kidding???” the president tweeted Friday night. “This is a total disgrace!”

You must be kidding??? This is a total disgrace! https://t.co/3QdaYCaiZS

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 6, 2020

Page worked on former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation and became a constant target for Trump at campaign rallies after text messages between her and former FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok that criticized Trump surfaced.

She had returned to the FBI, while Strzok was removed from Mueller’s probe after the texts were leaked. Trump’s GOP allies quickly came to view the pair as evidence that parts of the Justice Department were trying to sabotage Trump’s presidency.

Page later sued the FBI, claiming that her text messages with Strzok were illegally released in December 2017, citing “multiple improper reasons.”

Trump has often targeted Page and Strzok, frequently mocking their extramarital affair.

“It’s like being punched in the gut,” Page said last year. “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.” 

The Justice Department’s inspector general concluded that political bias did not motivate the FBI’s investigation into Russia’s election interference but noted that agents omitted essential information when submitting applications to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page in 2016.