The two FBI officials who have been criticized for anti-Trump texts, exchanged more than 50,000 text messages, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Monday night.
The number was released after six congressional committees requested all text messages between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page between July 1, 2015, and July 28, 2017. Congress has been pushing for answers on the text exchanges after it was revealed the FBI failed to preserve five months of texts between Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page.
“We will leave no stone unturned to confirm with certainty why these text messages are not now available to be produced and will use every technology available to determine whether the missing messages are recoverable from another source,” Mr. Sessions said. “If we are successful, we will update the congressional committees immediately.”
Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page, who were romantically involved, had been communicating by text message for months leading up to the 2016 election. In the texts, Mr. Strzok, who was part of the team that investigated Hilary Clinton’s server, referred to Donald Trump as, “an idiot” and cryptically talked about having an insurance policy in case he was elected president.
The FBI’s servers are missing five months’ worth of those texts between Dec. 14, 2016, and May 17, 2017, Mr. Sessions said.
That spans a critical period between President Trump’s transition and the start of Robert Mueller’s Russia probe. Both agents were assigned to the Mueller investigation.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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