Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report, set to be released on Dec. 9, is really starting to make things interesting as the players in the Russia collusion investigation begin to peek their heads out of their holes and spin their behavior as much ado about nothing.

Former DOJ lawyer and Peter Strzok lover Lisa Page gave a tremendously weird interview to The Daily Beast, for example, wherein she asserts several things she, without question, considers exculpatory when it comes to misconduct in the Russia collusion investigation into Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Presenting herself as something of a victim (which, while pretty hilarious or infuriating to read, depending on your temperament, is not illegal) she declares she did nothing illegal by expressing her opinions to her lover Strzok via text, even if they were highly critical of Trump. She’s protected by the First Amendment, she says. Of course The Daily Beast’s Molly Jong Fast (surprised?), in running cover for the disgraced attorney, never includes the text of said exchanges.

She also downplays the idea that her own personal political animus for Trump could have influenced any investigation she may have been a part of. The reader is left with the feeling that to think such a thing is simple minded and absurd (surprised?).

But before she gets too haughty, poor Lisa Page needs to go back and read the Executive Summary Horowitz wrote back in June 2018 that explains the predicate (remember that word because you’re about to see it again and again) for the investigation into how the FBI conducted itself relative to Russia collusion. The Washington Examiner’s Byron York pulls the relevant section.

Many note Lisa Page has decided to talk on eve of IG report release. True. But IG has already written (in 2018) that Page & Strzok caused damage that 'goes to the heart of the FBI's reputation for neutral factfinding and political independence.' https://t.co/8BjabXS5vp pic.twitter.com/7MomA18Shp

— Byron York (@ByronYork) December 2, 2019

“This is antithetical to the core values of the FBI and the Department of Justice.”

While Page may skate for her infidelity in marriage (not the place of the government to handle that indiscretion), and she may skate on any illegality of behavior using the First Amendment right to protected speech (she’s reportedly a pretty good lawyer and would know if she were in real trouble there), the assertion that her bias was a nothingburger that had no influence on her work has apparently already been answered by the IG.

It’s hard to understand the point of her interview except to muddy the waters ahead of the release of the IG report. But then muddying waters seems to be what Lisa Page, for all her reported skill as an attorney and her self-reported skill as an agent of truth, is particularly good at.