FBI/GOP/HOUSE OF REPS/RUSSIA INVESTIGATION/TRUMP PEOPLE: “Peter Strzok tussled with GOP lawmakers at a contentious hearing Thursday [7-12-18], with the FBI agent denying that anti-Trump text messages he sent influenced his work and Republicans accusing him of epitomizing purported bias among federal investigators..Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R., Va.) said Mr. Strzok’s exchange of thousands of texts messages from 2015 through 2017 with a former FBI lawyer, Lisa Page, with whom he was having an affair, was troubling. Mr. Strzok was the lead agent on a Federal Bureau of Investigation probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server and later helped spearhead the FBI’s inquiry into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election..Mr. Strzok said that he criticized a variety of figures besides President Donald Trump —including Mrs. Clinton, his rival in the 2016 campaign—in the text messages. The targets of his criticism included politicians of both parties, such as Eric Holder, President Barack Obama’s first attorney general, but he leveled his harshest barbs at Mr. Trump, calling him a ‘douche’ and an ‘idiot.'”
–Aruna Viswanatha, “FBI’s Peter Strzok Denies Claims of Biased Probe at House Hearing,” The Wall Street Journal, July 12, 2018 5:10 pm