Chuck Ross | Reporter

Peter Strzok sent Lisa Page a text message about “media leak strategy” during a key point in the Trump-Russia probe.
Strzok sent the message just before The Washington Post published a bombshell story about the FBI obtaining surveillance warrants against Carter Page.
North Carolina Republican Rep. Mark Meadows says the messages raise “grave concerns” about an “apparent systemic culture of leaking” at the FBI and DOJ.

Newly released text messages show disgraced FBI official Peter Strzok asked to speak to former FBI lawyer Lisa Page about a “media leak strategy” during a crucial period of the Trump-Russia investigation in 2017.

The text messages were revealed Monday by North Carolina Republican Rep. Mark Meadows, a member of the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee.

“Our review of these new documents raises grave concerns regarding an apparent systemic culture of media leaking by high-ranking officials at the FBI and DOJ related to ongoing investigations,” Meadows wrote to U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in the letter, which was obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation and first reported by Sara Carter.

Meadows pointed to text messages Strzok sent to Page on April 10, 2017, and April 12, 2017.

In the first message, Strzok, who then served as deputy chief of the FBI’s counterintelligence division, wrote to Page that: “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.”

Strzok was at that time the lead investigator on the FBI’s probe into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government. He joined the special counsel’s investigation after it was formed in May 2017. He was removed from the investigation in July 2017 after the discovery of anti-Trump text messages that he exchanged with Lisa Page. He was fired from the FBI on Aug. 10. (RELATED: Strzok: ‘We’ll Stop’ Trump Presidency)

In one Aug. 8, 2016, message, Strzok told Page that President Donald Trump would never become president, because “We’ll stop it.”

Meadows says in his letter that an April 12, 2017, text message shows Strzok congratulating Page while referring to two damaging articles about former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

Meadows wrote that “in the text, Strzok warns Page two articles are coming out, one which is ‘worse’ than the other about Lisa’s ‘namesake.'”

“Well done, Page,” Strzok wrote. It is unclear if he was referring to Lisa Page or Carter Page.

The text messages were included https://dailycaller.com/2018/09/10/strzok-media-leak-text/