'I decided to take my power back': Ex-FBI lawyer Lisa Page speaks out on Trump's 'sickening' attacks

Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page has tried to avoid the media spotlight since gaining national attention for her text messages with fired FBI agent Peter Strzok, which President Donald Trump and his allies have used as evidence of a "deep state" conspiracy to undermine his presidency.

But in a rare interview, Page, 39, told The Daily Beast that she could no longer silently stomach the president's attacks on her. She said "the straw that broke the camel’s back" came when Trump repeatedly called her name at an Oct. 11 rally in Minneapolis in what she described as a "demeaning fake orgasm" while mocking her and Strzok, who were engaged in an extramarital affair.

"I had stayed quiet for years hoping it would fade away, but instead it got worse," she says. "It had been so hard not to defend myself, to let people who hate me control the narrative. I decided to take my power back."

"I'm done being quiet," she said Sunday night in a tweet linking to the Daily Beast interview.

Page, who left the FBI in May 2018, said "it's almost impossible to describe" the feeling of being repeatedly attacked by Trump.

"It's like being punched in the gut. My heart drops to my stomach when I realize he has tweeted about me again. The president of the United States is calling me names to the entire world. He’s demeaning me and my career. It’s sickening," she told The Daily Beast.

"But it's also very intimidating because he’s still the president of the United States. And when the president accuses you of treason by name, despite the fact that I know there's no fathomable way that I have committed any crime at all, let alone treason, he's still somebody in a position to actually do something about that. To try to further destroy my life," she added.