Fired FBI agent Peter Strzok became the public face of a two-year Russia investigation that President Trump loyalists say is filled with biased investigators and bogus charges.
He started and led the probe into Mr. Trump and his associates. He also led the FBI’s internal resistance.
He is most famous for sending incendiary text messages to his FBI lover, attorney Lisa Page, ridiculing candidate Trump as a “f——— idiot” and speaking of plans to defeat him.
During the 2016 campaign, he talked of an “insurance policy” in case Mr. Trump became president. And he vowed to Ms. Page, “We’ll stop” him.
At a House hearing last month, he repeatedly denied his dislike for President Trump influenced his decision making. But Trump supporters say he took a number of questionable steps to ensnarl the Trump campaign in a long investigation.
The Strzok narrative:
SEE ALSO: Peter Strzok fired from the FBI for anti-Trump texts
- The Justice Department Inspector General criticized him for quickly moving to start a counter-intelligence investigation into Trump people before he completed his probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server to handled classified data.
- He opened the Trump probe on July 31, 2016 based on hearsay from an Australian diplomat via the U.S. embassy in London. The diplomat said a Trump volunteer, George Papadopoulos, told him a Russian-connected professor heard that Moscow owned “thousands” of Mrs. Clinton’s emails. Conservatives say this amounted to nothing more than political gossip about the 30,000 emails she had destroyed.
- Mr. Strzok’s FBI team embraced an unverified dossier written by ex-British spy Christopher Steele. Mr. Steele was paid by Fusion GPS with money from the Clinton campaign and Democratic Party. The FBI used the dossier to convince a court to approve a wiretap on campaign volunteer Carter Page. The bureau also relied on the dossier to guide the investigation. The bureau told a House committee last year it had still not confirmed Mr. Steele’s Kremlin-sourced charges.
- Mr. Strzok participated in a partisan flow of anti-Trump information that went from the Clinton opposite research firm, Fusion GPS, to Associated Attorney General Bruce Ohr to the FBI agent. Mr. Ohr’s wife, Nellie, worked at Fusion as a Russia expert.
- Mr. Strzok’s unit hired at least one “confidential human source” or CHS to spy on the Trump campaign. The informant, Stefan Halper, who has ties to the Pentagon and the British spy service MI6, made contact with Mr. Papadopoulos and Mr. Page.
- The FBI agreed to pay Mr. Steele $50,000 to continue investigating Mr. Trump, but then fired him for disclosing his informant status to the press.
“Strzok promised to stop Trump from becoming president before the investigation even began,” said Rep. Trey Gowdy, South Carolina Republican, who heads the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee.
As Mr. Strzok sat at the witness table, Mr. Gowdy said, “He talked, longingly, of Trump resigning two months after he was inaugurated and well before the special counsel investigation even began.
Strzok even talked about impeachment the day the special counsel was appointed.”
Special Counsel Robert Mueller fired Mr. Strzok in August 2017 after Justice IG Michael Horowitz notified him of the agent’s explosive text messages. Mr. Horowitz is now investigating the FBI’s Trump probe, as is a U.S. attorney in Utah.
Some of Mr. Strzok’s anti-Trump messages:
- February 12, 2016, “Oh, [Trump’s] abysmal. I keep hoping the charade will end and people will just dump him.”
- March 3, 2016, “Omg [Trump’s] an idiot.
- July 21, 2016, “Trump is a disaster. I have no idea how destabilizing his Presidency would be.”
- August 26, 2016, “Just went to a southern Virginia Walmart. I could SMELL the Trump support….”
- October 19, 2016, “I am riled up. Trump is a f—king idiot, is unable to provide a coherent answer.”
- August 8, 2016: Ms. Page: “[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” Mr. Strzok: “No. No he’s not. We’ll stop it.”
• Rowan Scarborough can be reached at rscarborough@washingtontimes.com.
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