7/12/2018

2016 ELECTION/CONGRESS/FBI/HILLARY CLINTON/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “An FBI agent whose anti-Trump text messages prompted sharp criticism over his handling of two politically charged investigations, told Congress he never permitted his views to affect his official actions, a claim GOP lawmakers derided. Peter Strzok’s testimony at a joint House committee hearing repeatedly devolved into partisan discord, with Republicans at one point threatening to hold him in contempt for refusing to answer some questions Mr. Strzok said the Federal Bureau of Investigation had told him not to answer. The FBI declined to comment…Mr. Strzok was the lead agent on the FBI probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state. He later served as the lead agent in the early days of special counsel Robert Mueller’s inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Mr. Mueller removed him from the probe a year ago, after the Justice Department inspector general uncovered Mr. Strzok’s exchange of tens of thousands of text messages from 2015 through 2017 with a former FBI lawyer, Lisa Page, with whom he was having an affair…Mr. Strzok noted that he criticized a variety of figures besides the Republican Mr. Trump—including his Democratic rival in the 2016 campaign, Mrs. Clinton—in the text messages. He saved his sharpest barbs for Mr. Trump, though, whom he referred to as an ‘idiot’ and a ‘douche.’”

Aruna Viswanatha and Del Quentin Wilber, “FBI’s Peter Strzok Denies Claims of Bias in Acrimonious House Hearing,” The Wall Street Journal, July 12, 2018 7:36 pm