FBI agent Peter Strzok, who was intimately involved in the Hillary Clinton email investigation and the probe of Russian election-meddling, vowed to “stop” Donald Trump from reaching the White House in an August 2016 text message to FBI lawyer Lisa Page, the Washington Post reports.
“[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” Page wrote to Strzok in a text message set to be released Thursday as part of a Department of Justice inspector general’s report.
“No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it,” Strzok, who was dating Page at the time, responded.
Strzok was removed from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team in August after the inspector general uncovered the text messages, and Page has since left the bureau. Strzok’s comment is reminiscent of his cryptic discussion of implementing an “insurance policy” in the event Trump won the election, which was exposed in a previous batch of text messages uncovered by the IG last year.
While it remains unclear whether their partisan leanings affected their conduct during their time on Mueller’s team, the Thursday report indicated it had no bearing on their behavior while investigating Clinton’s use of a private email server.
“We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that improper considerations, including political bias, directly affected the specific investigative actions we reviewed,” Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz wrote in the report. “The conduct by these employees cast a cloud over the entire FBI investigation.”
In a Thursday morning statement, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer preempted any claims that the report, which will be sent to Congress Thursday, constituted evidence that Mueller’s investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials was tainted by political bias.
Though there was no “political bias” involved (no… not much), Strzok and Page were going to stop Trump from being President, either by poisoning the campaign or having charges brought for impeachment. Mind you, there was not then, nor has there been since, any real crimes discovered that would disqualify Trump from election or qualify for impeachment. So, if not politics… then what? And what right did THEY have to decide the outcome of the election?
No, they just wrote the exoneration months before she was ever interviewed, removed any damaging language from the statement that actually SAID she broke the law and shielded Obama from any fallout for knowing using the secret, private, unsecured email server.
Aside from candy coating the “political bias” aspect, the report pretty much confirms all the suspicions that non-Obama/Hillary sycophants have had.
My own plan was probably the same one that Strzok and Page were talking about in their personal email. I was going to stop him at the ballot box.
The Inspector General didn’t find a shred of evidence that their official conduct was in any way inappropriate as a result of their personal views.
Per Congress’ oversight authority, we request you supply your original drafts along with the finish published forms.” I guess with the “sterilizing” of the Hillary investigation and writing the outcome before the investigation was complete, they want to see how much this IG report was altered if at all.
If no bias found why the whole starbucks treatment?
If original drafts accurately and precisely reflected final, official conclusions, there wouldn’t be any need for final, official versions. Such a request is even goofier than usual.
Speaking of goofy—and alarming—this, today, from Jeff Sessions with regard to criticisms about separating undocumented children from their mothers and sending them off to separate concentration camps:
God, I am very certain, has not ordained Donald Trump to further His purposes. Laws are not necessarily good, simply by virtue of the fact that they are laws. They are the creation of men, not God. I seriously doubt that the Apostle Paul meant for his statement to become such a generalization.
@Greg:
He was going to stop him by using unverified, unverifiable information bought by the opposition candidate (HIS candidate) and using it as “evidence” for surveillance on a candidate and then a President to try and concoct grounds for an investigation with which to try and depose a duly elected President. That’s a little different from casting a vote.
They could not “rule out bias” in Strzok’s decision to drop the Hillary investigation and focus on investigating Trump. The report says there was no bias, then proceeds to give dozens of examples of bias throughout the report. Much like Comey’s statement on Hillary, the report shows loads of evidence of bias and crimes, then states there wasn’t any. As far as the investigation of Hillary, basically NO rules, regulations, processes or procedures were followed.
@Deplorable Me, #6:
An inability to completely rule something out is a very long way from establishing that the thing in question actually happened.
I realize many people have great difficulty with this point. Perhaps Robert Mueller or Barbara Underwood will eventually prove helpful in the clarification of the distinction.
@Greg:
They can’t rule it out because it is there before our eyes and apparent to everyone. When they couldn’t press Hillary on tough questions because she “was going to be the next President”, do you think that was a political decision or a personal one?
They didn’t press Trump on tough questions. Nobody questioned him at all.
Remember the IG’s brief.
All he did was interview agents and actors in this.
He NEVER cross-examined any of them!
(That was not allowed.)
He reported only what they told him.
It doesn’t make what they told him fact or fiction.
It just asks you to accept that that’s what the players said.
Since some of them have already been caught in lies, it makes sense to be skeptical of taking their word in this report.
@Greg:
No, the anti-Trump/pro-Hillary zealots simply assumed he is guilty and leak the accusations. Gathering facts just weakens the false narrative.
Who goes to jail on an indictment? Where is the assumption of innocence?
Political theater. Witch hunt. Travesty. Abuse of power. Injustice.
Remember the deepstate does not control the media or the content you see http://thefederalist.com/2018/06/14/inspector-general-put-together-insane-fbi-leak-chart-upon-finding-rules-widely-ignored/
@Greg: How do you know God has not picked on Trump to further his work? You would have to be godly to know that. talk about goofy, you are the definition.
@Greg: Or Mueller and Underwood may complete their investigation like most of Mueller’s investigations with charging the wrong people.
@Randy: Dont remind Greg about the violence of Jesus, driving the money changers out of the Temple. No one knows the bible and gods intent better than an atheist.
@Greg: Your party and their bought operatives in the FBI were caught trying to manufacture the outcome of an election: treason in the highest degree.
Insurance Policy, i.e., the false claims of Russian Collusion that they knew the compliant media cycle would blast 24-7.
Good old 3rd World style lies and propaganda.
Didn’t work.
Not according to the Justice Department Inspector General’s Senate testimony , going on at this moment.