In a Friday night court filing submitted shortly before midnight, Rosenstein says he made the decision to protect Strzok and Page from the damaging effects of lawmakers and others releasing the texts for use as political ammunition.

In the messages, Strzok and Page regularly disparaged Trump and appeared to seek to reassure each other he could not be elected. Both called Trump an "idiot" and said Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton deserved to win.

The texts also included murky discussions of an "insurance policy" to guard against Trump's election. Trump backers have interpreted the reference as a plan to use the then-ongoing investigation into ties between Trump advisers and Russia as way to prevent him from taking office or undermine his presidency, but Strzok and Page have denied any such intent. -Politico

Lisa Page - who sued the DOJ and FBI in December over the release, appears to be pissed.

Strzok has separately sued the agencies as well - for which Rosenstein's admission was submitted as part of the government's defense. The former DAG says that public disclosure of the texts was inevitable in connection with testimony he was set to give the next day in front of the House Judiciary Committee.