Lisa Page, the FBI official accused of harboring an anti-Trump bias, sent a text message in September 2016 saying that then-President Obama wanted “to know everything” about the FBI’s probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.
The text message exchange with Peter Strzok, another FBI official with whom she was having an affair, contains a message from Page about preparing talking points for then-FBI Director James Comey to give to Obama.
The exchange, in which Strzok wrote that Obama “wants to know everything we’re doing,” was included in a report released Tuesday by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Republican staff on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
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Fox News first reported on the exchange on Wednesday.
That report states that the text message exchange raises questions about Obama’s personal involvement in the investigation into Clinton’s email use. Republican lawmakers have raised concerns about the Obama administration’s handling of that probe.
“Although sometimes cryptic and disjointed due to their nature, these text messages raise several questions about the FBI and its investigation of classified information on Secretary Clinton’s private email server,” the report says.
What exactly Obama wanted to know about the investigation — if anything — is unclear.
President Trump quickly seized on the report.
“NEW FBI TEXTS ARE BOMBSHELLS!” he tweeted.
Page and Strzok have come under fire in recent months after the discovery of text messages between the two that showed them criticizing President Trump and Republicans, more broadly.
Republicans have pointed to the text messages as evidence of bias among federal law enforcement officials.
Both Page and Strzok briefly worked on special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, though Page’s detail on the team ended before the messages were discovered. Strzok was removed from the investigation after the Justice Department became aware of the texts.
The report by Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Republicans came days after Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee released a controversial memo accusing the FBI and Justice Department of misusing their authority to obtain a secret surveillance order against Carter Page, a former foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign.
That memo has been the subject of controversy, with Democrats arguing that it omits key facts that are necessary to put the information in the proper context.
The Intelligence panel voted on Monday to release a Democratic memo rebutting the Republican document. Trump must now decide whether to OK the Democratic rebuttal for release.