FBI
"Loses" Five Months Of Text Messages Between Anti-Trump
Agents, Blames Glitch
21
January, 2018
Five
months of text messages between anti-Trump FBI agents Peter Strzok
and Lisa Page have been lost, according to a Friday disclosure from
the Justice Department to the Senate Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC), as reported by the
Associated Press and
the Daily Caller.
Peter
Strzok and Lisa Page
In
a letter from Stephen Boyd, the assistant attorney general for
legislative affairs at the Justice Department, to Wisconsin Sen. Ron
Johnson, the chairman of HSGAC, the assistant AG writes that "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."
The
explanation for the gap was "misconfiguration
issues related to rollouts, provisioning, and software upgrades that
conflicted with the FBI's collection capabilities."
The
missing texts conveniently span the period between Dec. 14, 2016 and
May 17, 2017 - the
day Robert Mueller was appointed to take over the FBI's probe of
alleged Trump-Russia collusion,
and during the period in which the FBI would ostensibly have
been hard at work on their "insurance
policy"
against a Trump victory, alluded to in previous text messages between
Strzok and Page.
"I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office - that there's no way he [Trump] gets elected - but I'm afraid we can't take that risk," wrote FBI counterintelligence officer Peter Strzok to FBI lawyer Lisa Page - with whom he was having an extramarital affair while spearheading both the Clinton email inquiry and the early Trump-Russia probe - adding "It's like a life insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40."
New
Texts Turned Over
Despite
the five months of missing text messages between Strzok and Page, the
DOJ turned over a new 384 page trove of new text messages to the
HSGAC, according to a letter from Chairman Ron Johnson (R-WI) to FBI
Director Christopher Wray (letter below).
The
new batch of texts are from the spring and summer of 2016
and involve discussions revolving around the Hillary Clinton email
investigation - and in particular, former Attorney General Loretta
Lynch's decision to accept the FBI's recommendation not to press
criminal charges against then-candidate Clinton.
One
exchange references a change in language to Comey's statement closing
out the email case involving Clinton. While an earlier draft of the
statement said Clinton and President Barack Obama had an email
exchange while Clinton was "on the territory" of a hostile
adversary, the reference to Obama was at first changed to "senior
government official" and then omitted entirely in the final
version.
The
exchange in question from Johnson's letter is below:
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.
In
a July 1 text message, Strzok tells Page that the timing of Lynch's
statement "looks like hell," while Page mockingly refers to
Lynch's decision to accept the FBI's conclusion a "real
profile in courag(e) since she knows no charges will be brought."
This
is also the exchange which troublingly demonstrates
that then-Attorney
General Loretta Lynch was aware that Comey would not recommend
criminal charges in the Clinton investigation prior to Lynch's
announcement that she would accept whatever recommendation the FBI
made.
Four
days later (and six days after the "tarmac"
meeting), Comey announced the FBI's recommendation not to press
charges against Clinton.
Strzok
and Page also texted each other with concerns over which email
accounts they were using for work purposes, with Page texting Strzok
on November 10, 2016 "Hey
without thinking I replied to the email you sent me on Gmail. But it
went to your Verizon. So please clear. Let me know if you want me to
send it again somewhere else."
On October 4, 2015, Strzok texts Page "It's
going to be ok at work. And haven't emailed you here, although I just
did on gmail."
* *
*
Wiped?
Like, with a cloth?
Word
of the missing texts between Strzok and Page come on the heels of a
report we covered yesterday in which the NSA
"sincerely
regrets"
deleting all Bush-era surveillance data it was ordered to preserve.
The
NSA told U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White in a filing on
Thursday night and another
little-noticed submission last year that the agency did not preserve
the content of internet communications intercepted between 2001 and
2007 under the program Bush ordered. To
make matters worse, backup tapes that might have mitigated the
failure were erased in 2009, 2011 and 2016, the NSA said.
“The NSA sincerely regrets its failure to prevent the deletion of this data,” NSA’s deputy director of capabilities, identified publicly as “Elizabeth B.,” wrote in a declaration filed in October.
“NSA senior management is fully aware of this failure, and the Agency is committed to taking swift action to respond to the loss of this data.”
Given
the magnitude of malfeasance already uncovered within the top ranks
of the FBI during and after the 2016 presidential race, we
can only imagine what's
contained within those five months of missing texts between the
rabidly anti-Trump FBI employees deeply involved in both the
Clinton and Trump investigations.
Or,
to summarize:
* * *
Full letter from HSGAC Chair Ron Johnson to FBI Director Christpher Wray (pdf)
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