Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
The text message between two FBI agents touted by Republican lawmakers as evidence of a “secret society” conspiring against President Trump appears to have been nothing more than a joke, ABC News reports. The months-old message, between FBI lawyer Lisa Page and senior FBI agent Peter Strzok, was reportedly submitted to the Senate Homeland Security Committee last week as investigators look into possible anti-Trump bias in the agency. Strzok was removed from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation last year over text messages that reportedly mocked Trump, a development that sent Trump’s Republican allies into a frenzy. A copy of the text message supposedly indicating a “secret society” appears to show the comments were made in jest after President Trump’s election win last year, however. “Are you even going to give out your calendars? Seems kind of depressing. Maybe it should just be the first meeting of the secret society,” Page was quoted as saying in the message by ABC News. There were reportedly no messages immediately before or after that message, and nothing else referencing a “secret society.”