Lisa Page claims FBI agent Peter Strzok joined Mueller investigation with impeachment, promotion in mind

Former FBI attorney Lisa Page told congressional investigators last year that Peter Strzok — a senior FBI agent in the probes into the Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump campaigns — joined special counsel Robert Mueller's team because if it resulted in impeachment it could be good for his career.

Page and Strzok had been engaged in an affair during the time the Mueller probe was launched. Strzok was later fired from the FBI.

What are the details?

According to recently released transcripts of her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Page explained that Strzok initially had reservations about joining the Mueller team because if it didn't result in anything material it could delay his upward mobility within the FBI.

Answering questions from Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas), Page said Strzok's line of reasoning was, "If this is going to fizzle out and be nothing, then I shouldn't sort of sacrifice my sort of long-term career prospects. If it's going to end in impeachment, that's kind of a big deal. I mean, put aside who it is, put aside how we feel about it. You know, that's monumental."

"People who are on Watergate are still known as somebody who was on Watergate," Page added.

In spite of text exchanges between Page and Strzok where they both expressed their personal dislike of President Trump, Page insisted Strzok was not pursuing the investigation because of any political bias.

"And so that's not sort of taken with respect to the, you know, feelings about Donald Trump," she told the committee. "It's about being on an unbelievably kick-ass team and being a part of, you know, something impressive."

Earlier in the transcript, Page confirms sending a text to Strzok related to their roles in investigating then-candidate Trump in August 2016, where she told Strzok, "Maybe you're meant to stay where you are because you're meant to protect the country from that menace." Page admitted to the committee that the menace she was referring to was Donald Trump.

Anything else?

In her testimony, Page also explained that she considered the possibility of the Trump campaign colluding with Russia to be a much bigger deal than Clinton's mishandling of top-secret government information while she was secretary of state.

"The Clinton investigation was whether she mishandled classified information. That's important," Page said. "It matters, but it does not matter like a person associated with a presidential campaign receiving and potentially accepting, which we don't know, obviously, but the risk that somebody had received and accepted an offer of assistance from Russia, which I view as our sort of most treacherous adversary."

The transcript of Page's second day of testimony before the committee can be found here.

H/T: The Washington Times