Peter Strzok and Lisa Page have now brought Barack Obama into their lovers’ nest.

A new batch of texts between the FBI’s former deputy head of counter-intelligence and his FBI lawyer mistress put new focus on the former president’s role in politically charged investigations.

President Trump trumpeted the news.

NEW FBI TEXTS ARE BOMBSHELLS!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 7, 2018

Most interesting is a September 2, 2016 text, in which Page says she’s preparing talking points for James Comey to present to Obama because “potus wants to know everything we are doing.”

A report released Tuesday by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee suggests she’s talking about the Hillary email investigation. (The report from Sen. Ron Johnson is called “The Clinton Email Scandal and the FBI’s Investigation of It”) 

But It Had to Do With Russia

NBC News says it’s not obvious from the texts Page is talking about the Clinton email investigation. True enough. Comey had already announced Hillary was going to skate. It’d be nearly another month before more Hillary emails would be found on Anthony Weiner’s computer. And yet another month before Andrew McCabe would bother to do anything about it. 

Further, associates of Strzok and Page say the briefing had to do with Russian interference in the election.

In jumping on the early headlines that the briefing had to do with Hillary, though, these associates and the media seem to have jumped into another pile of stink all together.

Three days before the text, House Democrats had demanded FBI investigation of possible Trump-Russia connections. 

 Strzok was already investigating Russia election interference. Also by September, Strzok and Page had already spoken together about a “plan” discussed in Andrew McCabe’s office to stop Trump and an “insurance policy” if he won. The Steele dossier project was well underway. The McCabe-Strzok team was mere weeks away from going to the FISA court with that unverified Hillary work-product to get a warrant to conduct surveillance on the Trump campaign. 

Was Obama getting briefed on that? It certainly falls under the definition of “everything we are doing.” It begs the question first made famous during Watergate: “What did the President know and when did he know it?” 

In addition, the text poses another issue for Obama. Obama flatly denied any involvement in ongoing FBI investigations. He told Fox News Sunday in April 2016:

I do not talk to the attorney general about pending investigations. I do not talk to FBI directors about pending investigations. I guarantee that there is no political influence in any investigation conducted by the Justice Department, or the FBI, not just in this case, but any case.  

And if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. 

The “this case” was the Hillary Clinton email investigation. Let’s talk about that a bit. 

Back to Hillary

As The Stream reported, the White House was smack-dab in the middle of Hillary investigation. On May 4, 2016 Page and Strzok texted about how Trump’s securing the GOP nomination put pressure on them to wrap up the Hillary prop.

Page schedule a White House meeting and the next day she was at the White House. That very day The Washington Post quoted insiders close to the case as saying that the FBI found no indication Clinton intended to harm national security. 

Where did this notion of “intent” come from? It’s not in the law, as so many have pointed out. Turns out it came from a certain former adjunct professor of Constitutional Law.

In that same April interview, President Obama said of Hillary, “She would never intentionally put America in any kind of jeopardy.” He even downplayed the classified information that had been found. “There’s classified, and then there’s classified.” (Of course, Hillary’s server did contain highly classified information. In fact, the Intelligence Community IG found messages relating to “special access programs,” or SAP. If you and I pass SAP information around like a recipe for guacamole we’re on a fast ticket to the federal pen. )

Also, Obama told 60 Minutes the use of a server “is not a situation in which America’s national security was endangered.” (Hold that thought, Mr. President.)

What was Obama telling the DOJ and the FBI? The standard for Clinton is “intent,” what she had on her computer really wasn’t classified, and national security was not endangered. Forget that the first isn’t the law and the second two are lies. These are statements. Marching orders. (Keep in mind, President Trump is being investigated for obstruction of justice for merely asking James Comey, “Can you consider going easy on Flynn?”) 

Within a couple weeks, James Comey — ever the good soldier — began drafting his exoneration memo just along the lines that the boss had laid out.

Still, even Comey’s memo would pose further issues for Obama. Well, at least for a little while.

That White House Meeting, The Comey Memo and the Disappearing President

On March 7, 2015, CBS News’s Bill Plante asked Obama when he first heard that “Hillary Clinton used an email system outside the U.S. government for official business when she was Secretary of State?”  His answer couldn’t be clearer: “The same time everybody else learned it through news reports.” 

This set off alarm bells in the Hillary campaign. Cheryl Mills sent campaign manager John Podesta an email. “We need to clean this up. He has emails from her. They do not say state.gov.” 

In fact, as Andrew McCarthy notes, “We now know that he himself used an alias to communicate at least 20 times with Hillary on her private, non-secure account.”

The White House tried to claim Obama was only talking about the existence of a whole server system. But, as Sen. Johnson’s report points out:

Plante … was not asking about Secretary Clinton’s exclusive use of a private email system — only the president’s knowledge that Secretary Clinton had used a private system for official business. 

Still, lying to the press isn’t a crime. And generally it doesn’t put national security in danger. However, receiving emails from Hillary Clinton via her private system while Hillary is in hostile countries with top-of-the-line eavesdropping ability does. 

The June 30, 2016 draft of Comey’s memo shows this is precisely what happened.

She also used her personal email extensively while outside the United States, including from the territory of sophisticated adversaries. That use included an email exchange with the President while Secretary Clinton was on the territory of such an adversary. Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal email account.

And they weren’t talking about Alec Baldwin.

Somehow, by the time Comey shared his findings with “we, the people” a few days later, the reference to the president had vanished. Poof. 

Peter Strzok was one of those who helped edit the statement. Months earlier, Lisa Page had warned Strzok not to go after Hillary Clinton “loaded for bear.” She might become president and would be looking for payback. Were Strzok and his superiors having similar thoughts when it came to the sitting president?

What’s better for your career? What’s better for the agency? Demonstrating that Obama had not only lied, but had received emails from Hillary that were likely hacked by an enemy? Or hitting the delete key? A little White Out as a favor to the White House.

Who made the decision? Who exerted pressure?

Meanwhile, wouldn’t you love to know what emails were exchanged between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, particularly when she was overseas with hostile eyes likely looking in?  You can’t. As Andrew McCarthy explains, after claiming to not know about Hillary’s use of private emails, “Obama had his email communications with Clinton sealed.”