Judicial Watch announced today it received 138 pages of emails between former FBI official Peter Strzok and former FBI attorney Lisa Page. The records include an email dated January 10, 2017, in which Strzok said that the version of the dossier published by BuzzFeed was “identical” to the version given to the FBI by McCain and had “differences” from the dossier provided to the FBI by Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson and Mother Jones reporter David Corn. January 10, 2017, is the same day BuzzFeed published the anti-Trump dossier by former British spy Christopher Steele, The emails also show Strzok and other FBI agents mocking President Trump a few weeks before he was inaugurated. In addition, the emails reveal that Strzok communicated with then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe about the “leak investigation” tied to the Clinton Foundation (the very leak in which McCabe was later implicated).
The records were produced to Judicial Watch in a January 2018 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed after the DOJ failed to respond to a December 2017 request for all communications between Strzok and Page (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:18-cv-00154)).
The FBI has only processed the records at a rate of 500 pages per month and has refused to process text messages. At this rate, the production of these communications would not be completed until at least late 2021. The FBI is now using the coronavirus as an excuse to shut down the production of any further records.
On January 10, 2017, Strzok, under the subject “RE: Buzzfeed published some of the reports,” writes: “Our internet system is blocking the site. I have the pdf via iPhone, but it’s 25.6MB. Comparing now. The set is only identical to what [Sen. John] McCain had (it has differences from what was given to us by Corn and Simpson).”
Strzok sent the email to Page and several top-ranking FBI officials, including Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Assistant Director for the Counterintelligence Division Bill Priestap, Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Jon Moffa, Assistant Director for Public Affairs Michael Kortan, General Counsel James Baker, and Director James Comey’s Chief of Staff James Rybicki.
Earlier, on January 10, 2017, BuzzFeed published a version of the dossier that Strzok said was “identical” to what McCain’s office had turned over to the FBI. Strzok sent theBuzzFeed-related email at 7:48 PM. At 8:23 PM on the same day, Strzok forwards to Page and several FBI officials an article by the UK outlet The Guardian titled “FBI chief given dossier by John McCain alleging secret Trump-Russia contacts.”
David Corn was one of Steele’s media contacts. Fusion GPS paid Steele, via funds from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton’s campaign, to write the dossier. In testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee in August 2017, Simpson said he was not aware of any version of the Steele dossier being given to the FBI.
While acknowledging he had given the dossier to the FBI, McCain had denied being the source of the BuzzFeed dossier report. But court filings which were unsealed in March 2019 show the Arizona Republican senator and an associate had shared the dossier with several media outlets.
Former State Department official and McCain associate David Kramer said in a December 13, 2017, deposition that the dossier was given to him by Steele and he then provided it to journalists at outlets including CNN, BuzzFeed and The Washington Post. The details were first reported by The Daily Caller.
The new production of records also includes a December 22, 2016, email in which Strzok asks then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe if the FBI had opened a “leak investigation” into Clinton Foundation media reports. Strzok writes: “I received word via Jen that tomorrow morning Mike S [presumably Executive Assistant Director Michael Steinbach] wants to talk about whether we have opened a leak investigation into the publicity surrounding the C Foundation. He said he’d like to discuss, as the D [Director James Comey] ‘would like to do something.’ I need guidance as to how/if you’d like me to detail the media pull we conducted. As you may recall, we have not detailed that activity other than to you and Bill.” McCabe’s reply to Strzok is redacted.
McCabe was fired from the FBI in March 2018 for leaking to the media and lacking “candor.” A February 2018 DOJ inspector general report concluded “that McCabe’s disclosure of the existence of an ongoing investigation … violated the FBI’s and the Department’s media policy and constituted misconduct.” McCabe was referred for prosecution but the Justice Department declined.
The documents also include several emails in which Strzok forwards Russiagate-related news articles to Page and other FBI officials. On January 1, 2017, Strzok forwarded to Moffa and another unidentified official a New York Times article titled “Trump Promises Revelation on Hacking”. The article discusses President-elect Donald Trump’s skepticism about U.S. intelligence assessments of Russian hacking relating to the 2016 election. Strzok cut-and-pasted a quote from the article in which Trump said, “I don’t care what they say, no computer is safe. I have a boy who’s 10 years old; he can do anything with a computer. You want something to really go without detection, write it out and have it sent by courier.” The article mentions that Trump said new information would be coming out the following Tuesday. Strzok then says in his cover note, “I think the Tuesday surprise is all the stuff [redacted] told him during the CI [counterintelligence] briefing. He DID mention the stuff about his son and the computer password …” A redacted FBI agent replies to Strzok, but the reply is also redacted. Another FBI agent then responds, “To be accurate he called it a code word not a password. Ha!” Strzok replies, “Funnies.”
On December 15, 2016, Strzok forwards to Page an article from the Daily Mail which states that a former British diplomat, Craig Murray, claimed to have received emails that were stolen from the DNC and John Podesta. Murray said he received the emails near the grounds of American University in Washington, DC. The article says the emails were from an inside DNC source, not Russians. Strzok writes in his cover note to Page, “Shaddy sh*t at AU…;)”.
On December 21, 2016, Strzok forwards to Page a link to a Defense One article about Russian efforts to interfere in the U.S. presidential election. Strzok cut-and-pasted a quote from former Acting CIA Director Michael Morell in which Morell says, “To me, and this is to me not an overstatement, this is the political equivalent of 9/11.”
On December 26, 2016, Strzok forwards to Moffa and an unidentified Washington Field Office agent a Bloomberg article titled “Trump Aide Partnered with Firm Run by Man with Alleged KGB Ties.” The article reports that Trump adviser Gen. Michael Flynn, having partnered in 2016 with Subu Kota, a man who pleaded guilty in 1996 to selling stolen biotech material to an FBI agent posing as a Russian spy. Strzok forwarded the article to Page, saying, “See, look, I’m sharing… ;)”
On January 4, 2017, Strzok forwards to Page a 14-page white paper by the Capital Research Center entitled “Conducting Foreign Relations Without Authority: The Logan Act.” He had previously sent the same file to Office of General Counsel attorney Trisha Anderson and to Priestap.
In a January 4, 2017, email thread a redacted official in the FBI’s Operational Technology Division emails Strzok and Page: “The AD [Assistant Director] of Cyber is apparently bringing up the idea of [redacted]. [Redacted] just messaged me after being pinged by SF [likely the FBI’s San Francisco office]. He asked why this was coming up again, and he wants to talk to me about it next week. Any recommendation on how to deal with this?” Pages replies, “Why don’t you let Pete or Bill or I reach out to the AD of Cyber to let him know how we got here [redacted]. It might then be worth [redacted].” The official responds, “Perfect. That works for me and you can mention that OTD brought it to you. My initial recommendation was for the AD to reach out to you two, but I can only assume that message did not reach him.”
On January 9, 2017, in an email with the subject line “USIC report,” [U.S. Intelligence Community] Strzok tells Page and a redacted official “Per D’s request on Friday, NYO received a single copy of the influence report from ODNI’s [redacted]; it is being maintained in the CD SAC’s safe for PEOTUS [president-elect of the United States]/senior staff.”
On January 10, 2017, Strzok emails Page, Moffa, Priestap and Jennifer Boone to say, “Per Rich [presumably Richard Quinn, formerly with the public affairs office], CNN to publish C material today between 4 and 5. Page replies: “We have lots of details from kortan [Asst Dir Michael Kortan of public affairs]. He will brief at the 3:45.” Strzok responds: “Can I maybe get a read out vis a vis relationship with Brits etc?”
Well, it looks like there were classified emails recovered from HRC’s unsecure server. Now, is she above the law? Are all of those FBI, state department and DOJ employees who had knowledge and failed to report also guilty? But then according to Mr West, the US is not in a war, so national security is not important!
@Randy:
Apparently, yes. Apparently for anyone to break any law in the country, all one needs is for a worshipful FBI director (or one the fears you will have them killed) to declare “they didn’t mean to.”
The Obama Administration inflicted terrific damage on our FBI and DOJ; I hope it can be repaired. It sure looks like repairs are very difficult.
April 21, 2020 – Assessment about Russian Interference and Trump was Accurate –
The new report by the GOP-run intelligence committee undercuts criticisms by some Trump supporters that the assessment overstated Russia’s activities.
Text of the entire article is posted here, along with a link to the report itself.
The republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee has concluded that Russian 2016 election interference was entirely real, and that their intentions included damaging Hillary Clinton’s campaign while promoting the election of Donald Trump. They found no evidence that the U.S. intelligence community’s investigation or conclusions were a product of partisan bias.
@Greg: So, providing fake dirt on Trump to Hillary was intended to HELP Trump. Ohhhhhh….
@Deplorable Me, #4:
Maybe you should take that up with the republican members of the republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee. They clearly saw a lot more detailed information than we’re allowed to see in today’s heavily redacted report release. Their findings beginning on page 6 are clear enough, however.
@Greg: I don’t have to take it up with anyone. Bullshit is bullshit no matter who issues it. Democrats, Russians and Ukrainians were all trading spit.
@Greg: The information or disinformation they got was from a politically biased IC and DOJ, The RINOs clutching pearls that such a crass person that wouldnt grovel before the Democrat press had the oval office. Having the majority, couldnt even get rid of AHCA that just about everyone of them ran on. They fed it to the RINO traitor MCSongbird knowing exactly what he would do with it.
@Randy: @Randy:
Always has been, always will be.
Yes. But nothing will happen to them other than perhaps having them sit through a “training class”.
The ‘Republic” referred to in the Pledge of Allegiance” no longer exits.
@Greg:
You, and they, can tell that to Durham when he’s handing out indictments.
@Greg:
You know what hurt Hillary’s campaign? Doing damaging things in the first place.
No illegal or shady acts in the first place, nothing for anyone to expose.
Funny how you idiots think Hillary is exempt from blame just because the Russians spilled her beans.
@Nathan Blue, #10:
Remind me exactly what beans the Russians spilled about Clinton that comes anywhere close to the b.s. Trump & Company got up to—and are likely currently getting up to in connection with the 2020 elections.
There’s a reason Trump has nominated nobody to fill any one of three current Federal Election Commission vacancies and put them back in the business of keeping elections honest. It’s not like there hasn’t been more than enough time since the vacancies occurred. He could have taken a day off golf and given the matter some thought, it being an election year and all. Had he wanted to.
Meanwhile, with the FEC effectively neutralized, Brad Parscale and Trump for President, Inc have set up layers of shell corporations to hide campaign fund sources like a collection of Russian Matryoshka dolls. Nobody knows where the money comes from or where it ultimately goes—and that will likely remain as obscure as who provided the millions that were behind Rudy Giuliani’s Biden defamation operation in Ukraine. Untold millions are moving under the table, landing in undisclosed pockets. These guys make Donald Segretti’s nefarious efforts on behalf of Richard Nixon look like the work of rank amateurs.
@Deplorable Me: #2
The most lasting damage will be to the public trust in the FBI and DOJ.
And now, with the heavy-handed abuse of state social order enforcement, public trust in local LEOs is falling.
Is there no one that the public can trust with authority?
@Petercat: And now we know that Obama was personally involved in making sure the false information of the Steele dossier (paid for by Hillary and the DNC) was included in the ICA in order to begin to build the excuse for why Hillary lost (if she lost) and damage the Trump administration (if he won).
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/ex-fbi-officials-obama-order-drove-push-to-include-steele-dossier-in-report-on-russian-interference
THERE is your election interference, @Greg: