by WorldTribune Staff, December 14, 2017
A pair of FBI agents working on special counsel Robert Mueller’s team exchanged text messages in which they appear to discuss how to prevent Donald Trump from being elected president.
In an Aug. 15, 2016 text message, FBI agent Peter Strzok writes to FBI lawyer Lisa Page: “I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office – that there’s no way [Trump] gets elected – but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk.”
“Andy” is believed to be Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe.
“It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40,” Strzok wrote.
Rep. Trey Gowdy, a member of the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, delivered a blunt assessment yesterday: “The notion that three bureau agents would be conspiring or plotting on how to handle the outcome of the presidential election is the opposite of what you want in an objective, dispassionate and neutral FBI.”
Strzok’s message to Page, who was also his mistress, is one of 375 released on Dec. 12 ahead of a House Judiciary Committee hearing with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
Republicans on the committee pressed Rosenstein on the Aug. 16, 2016 text message, suggesting that Strzok was indicating he planned to prevent Trump from being elected.
Rosenstein said the Justice Department and FBI will soon make Strzok available for an interview with the House Intelligence Committee.
Senate Judiciary Committee chair Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican, sent a letter to Rosenstein on Dec. 13 inquiring about the text message.
Strzok’s text was sent just after he was selected by Mueller to lead the FBI’s investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
In one Oct. 20, 2016 exchange, Strzok called Trump a “f*cking idiot.”
In on Aug. 6 text, Strzok responded to an article shared by Page by replying, “F Trump.”
The pair exchanged another cryptic text message on Aug. 6.
“Maybe you’re meant to stay where you are because you’re meant to protect the country from that menace,” Page wrote.
“I can protect our country at many levels, not sure if that helps,” Strzok replied.
In a March 2, 2016 text Strzok said he would likely vote for Clinton. In another exchange he wrote that if Trump won the Republican primary, Clinton would likely win the presidency. “God Hillary should win 100,000,000 – 0,” he told Page.
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz said that his office obtained the text messages from the FBI on July 20. A week later, he met with Mueller and Rosenstein to inform them of the politically-charged texts.
Strzok was “immediately” removed from the investigation after Mueller was told of the texts.
Strzok also conducted many of the biggest interviews in the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified material, including with Clinton and her top aides, Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills.
“After finding a number of politically-oriented text messages between Page and Strzok, the OIG sought from the FBI all text messages between Strzok and Page from their FBI-issued phones through November 30, 2016, which covered the entire period of the Clinton e-mail server investigation,” Horowitz said in a letter to Grassley.
Many Democrats who supported Clinton and blamed then-FBI Director James Comey for her election loss were fully supportive of investigating the FBI’s behavior during the campaign.
“This is highly encouraging and to be expected given Director Comey’s drastic deviation from Justice Department protocol,” Clinton campaign communications director Brian Fallon said in January. “A probe of this sort, however long it takes to conduct, is utterly necessary in order to take the first step to restore the FBI’s reputation as a non-partisan institution.”
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