Wiped, Like With a Cloth? Now the FBI Claims It Also Destroyed Relevant, Subpeonaed Texts; Say They Can't Recover Biased Agent Peter Strzok's Texts

Boy this just keeps happening to the same group of people, doesn't it?

he FBI on Sunday said it "failed to preserve" five months of text messages involving a senior agent who was taken off Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigative team following a report he made derogatory comments about President Donald Trump, The Washington Post reports.

The revelation came after the Justice Department turned over additional text messages to Congress involving Peter Strzok, a veteran counterintelligence agent who also worked the Hillary Clinton email case. He was discharged from Mueller's team after Mueller learned that he had traded politically charged text messages -- many anti-Trump in nature -- with an FBI lawyer who was also detailed to the group. The lawyer, Lisa Page, left Mueller's team before the text messages were discovered.

"The Department wants to bring to your attention that the FBI’s technical system for retaining text messages sent and received on FBI mobile devices failed to preserve text messages for Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page," said the letter, signed by assistant attorney general for legislative affairs Stephen Boyd.

The messages are from a key time -- the period during the opening of the RUSSIA investigation, December 2016 to May 2017. But I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

Earlier it was revealed that one text between the pair stated that then-Attorney General Lynch knew that Hillary Clinton would not be charged from very early in the alleged investigation.

Gee, I wonder how they knew that?

In another exchange, the two express displeasure about the timing of Lynch’s announcement that she would defer to the FBI’s judgment on the Clinton investigation. That announcement came days after it was revealed that the attorney general and former President Bill Clinton had an impromptu meeting aboard her plane in Phoenix, though both sides said the email investigation was never discussed.

Strzok said in a July 1 text message that the timing of Lynch's announcement "looks like hell." And Page appears to mockingly refer to Lynch's decision to accept the FBI’s conclusion in the case as a "real profile in courag(e) since she knows no charges will be brought."

posted by Ace at 12:01 PM

| Access Comments