The discovery of text messages sent by Trump-hating FBI Peter Strzok left a permanent stain on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s already tainted Russia investigation. In addition, the agent’s involvement in the Clinton email investigation poses a ‘landmine,’ for the probe as the Justice Department Inspector General’s report on the investigation looms.
USA Today reports:
Nearly a year later, Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s wide-ranging review of the FBI and Justice’s work in the politically-charged Clinton case now looms as a potential landmine for Russia special counsel Robert Mueller.
For months, Horowitz’s investigation — which has amassed interviews with former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, former FBI Director James Comey and other key officials — had been grinding on in near anonymity. That is, until earlier this month when the inspector general acknowledged that Mueller was alerted to a cache of text messages exchanged between two FBI officials on his staff that disparaged Trump.
The communications, involving senior counter-intelligence agent Peter Strzok and bureau lawyer Lisa Page, were gathered in the course of Horowitz’s internal review of the Clinton case, which Strzok also helped oversee. Horowitz’s investigation is not examining Mueller’s operation. But the disclosures already have provided a hammer to Trump loyalists who are escalating their criticisms of the legitimacy of the special counsel’s inquiry.
Unsure of who Horowitz is? Here’s the latest on the Inspector General:
In a recent letter sent to Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Ron Johnson (R-WI), Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz revealed details about the discovery of the anti-Trump texts.
Daily Caller reports:
The Justice Department’s office of the inspector general revealed new details Wednesday about how it discovered the anti-Trump text messages that led to FBI agent Peter Strzok’s removal from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department watchdog, said that his office obtained the text messages from the FBI on July 20. A week later, he met with Mueller and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to inform them of the politically-charged texts. […]
Horowitz, writing to Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley and Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, said that his office obtained the Strzok texts after asking the FBI to produce communications from bureau-issued phones for a select group of employees who worked on the Clinton email probe. […]
“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 revealed to both Grassley and Johnson.
Below is a photo of Horowitz.
Source: DOJ
This month, Fox News published a portion of the approximately 10,000 texts messages sent between FBI agent Peter Strzok and lawyer Lisa Page. Among the messages is an exchange revealing Strzok and Page discussed an ‘insurance policy,’ against a Trump presidency.
