Newly revealed text messages between former FBI agent Peter Strzok and former FBI attorney Lisa Page reveal that Strzok wanted to use CNN’s report on the infamous “Steele Dossier” to justify interviewing people in the Trump-Russia investigation, reports CNN.

“Sitting with Bill watching CNN. A TON more out,” Strzok texted to Page on Jan. 10, 2017, following CNN’s report.

“Hey let me know when you can talk. We’re discussing whether, now that this is out, we use it as a pretext to go interview some people ,” Strzok continued.

Recall that CNN used the (leaked) fact that former FBI Director James Comey had briefed then-President-Elect Donald Trump on a two-page summary of the Steele Dossier to justify printing their January report.

This is a troubling development in light of a May report that the FBI knew that CNN was “close to going forward” with the Steele Dossier story, and that “The trigger for them is they know the material was discussed,” clearly indicating active communications between CNN and the FBI.

Weeks later, as the Daily Caller‘s Chuck Ross notes, the FBI approached former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos “under the guise of interviewing him about his contacts with an alleged source for the dossier.”

In short, knowledge of the Comey-Trump briefing was leaked to CNN, CNN printed the story, Strzok wanted to use it as a pretext to interview people in the Trump-Russia investigation, and weeks later George Papadopoulos became ensnared in their investigation.

And when one considers that we learned of an FBI “media leak strategy” this week, it suggests pervasive collusion between Obama-era intelligence agencies and the MSM to defeat, and then smear Donald Trump after he had won the election.

Text messages discussing the “media leak strategy” were revealed Monday by Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC). The messages, sent the day before and after two damaging articles about former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, raise “grave concerns regarding an apparent systematic culture of media leaking by high-ranking officials at the FBI and DOJ related to ongoing investigations.”

A review of the documents suggests that the FBI and DOJ coordinated efforts to get information to the press that would potentially be “harmful to President Trump’s administration.” Those leaks pertained to information regarding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrant used to spy on short-term campaign volunteer Carter Page. The letter lists several examples: April 10, 2017: (former FBI Special Agent) Peter Strzok contacts (former FBI Attorney) Lisa Page to discuss a “media leak strategy.” Specifically, the text says: “I had literally just gone to find this phone to tell you I want to talk to you about media leak strategy with DOJ before you go.”

April 12, 2017: Peter Strzok congratulates Lisa Page on a job well done while referring to two derogatory articles about Carter Page. In the text, Strzok warns Page two articles are coming out, one which is “worse” than the other about Lisa’s “namesake”.” Strzok added: “Well done, Page.” –Sara Carter

Recall that Strzok’s boss, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, was fired for authorizing self-serving leaks to the press.

Also recall that text messages released in January reveal that Lisa Page was on the phone with Washington Post reporter Devlin Barrett, then with the New York Times, when the reopening of the Clinton Foundation investigation hit the news cycle – just one example in a series of text messages matching up with MSM reports relying on leaked information, as reported by the Conservative Treehouse.

♦Page: 5:19pm “Still on the phone with Devlin. Mike’s phone is ON FIRE.” ♥Strzok: 5:29pm “You might wanna tell Devlin he should turn on CNN, there’s news on.” ♦Page: 5:30pm “He knows. He just got handed a note.” ♥Strzok: 5:33pm “Ha. He asking about it now?” ♦Page: 5:34pm “Yeah. It was pretty funny. Coming now.” At 5:36pm Devlin Barrett tweets:

Meadows says that the texts show “a coordinated effort on the part of the FBI and DOJ to release information in the public domain potentially harmful to President Donald Trump’s administration.“

Revisiting the FBI-CNN connection

Going back to the internal FBI emails revealed in May bya Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), we find that McCabe had advance knowledge of CNN’s plans to publish the Steele Dossier report.

In an email to top FBI officials with the subject “Flood is coming,” McCabe wrote: “CNN is close to going forward with the sensitive story … The trigger for them is they know the material was discussed in the brief and presented in an attachment.” McCabe does not reveal how he knew CNN’s “trigger” was Comey’s briefing to Trump.

McCabe shot off a second email shortly thereafter to then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates along with her deputy, Matthew Alexrod, with the subject line “News.”

“Just as an FYI, and as expected,” McCabe wrote, “it seems CNN is close to running a story about the sensitive reporting.” Again, how McCabe knew this is unclear and begs investigation.

Johnson also wanted to know when FBI officials “first learned that media outlets, including CNN, may have possessed the Steele dossier. ”

As The Federalist noted in May, “To date, there is no public evidence that the FBI ever investigated the leaks to media about the briefing between Trump and Comey. When asked in a recent interview by Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier, Comey scoffed at the idea that the FBI would even need to investigate the leak of a secret briefing with the incoming president.”

“Did you or your subordinates leak that?” Baier asked. “No,” Comey responded. “I don’t know who leaked it.” “Did you ever try to find out?” Baier asked. “Who leaked an unclassified public document?” Comey said, even though Baier’s question was about leaking details of a briefing of the incoming president, not the dossier. “No,” Comey said.

And now it looks like we have an answer for why the FBI never investigated the leak…

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