FBI agent rejects charges of bias at hearing
Peter Strzok says critical texts never impacted FBI job
WASHINGTON — An FBI agent whose anti-Trump text messages fuelled suspicions of partisan bias said at a contentious and occasionally chaotic hearing in Congress on Thursday that his work has never been tainted by politics, rejecting Republican allegations that he set out to stop Donald Trump from becoming president.
Peter Strzok testified publicly for the first time since being removed from special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, telling lawmakers that texts he traded with an FBI lawyer in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election reflected personal views that he never once acted on.
“At no time, in any of those texts, did those personal beliefs ever enter into the realm of any action I took,” Strzok said.
He insisted under aggressive questioning that an August 2016 text in which he said “We’ll stop” a Trump presidency followed Trump’s denigration of the family of a dead U.S. service member. He said it was his personal view, written late at night and off-the-cuff, of “horrible, disgusting behaviour” by the then-Republican presidential candidate.
But, he added in a raised voice and emphatic tone, “It was in no way — unequivocally — any suggestion that me, the FBI, would take any action whatsoever to improperly impact the electoral process for any candidate.” Some Democrats applauded after he finished speaking.
Republican members of the House judiciary and oversight committees grilled Strzok as they argued that the text messages exchanged with FBI lawyer Lisa Page colour the outcome of the Hillary Clinton email investigation and undercut the ongoing investigation into Russian election interference. Strzok, a seasoned counter-intelligence agent, helped lead both investigations but has since been reassigned to human resources.
“Agent Strzok had Hillary Clinton winning the White House before he finished investigating her,” said Rep. Trey Gowdy, Republican chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “Agent Strzok had Donald Trump impeached before he even started investigating him. That is bias. Agent Strzok may not see it but the rest of the country does, and it is not what we want, expect or deserve from any law enforcement officer, much less the FBI.”
The hearing briefly devolved into chaos and open yelling as Judiciary Committee Chair Robert Goodlatte said Strzok needed to answer Republicans’ questions and suggested they might recess the hearing and hold him in contempt. Democrats objected to Goodlatte’s repeated attempts to get Strzok to answer. Goodlatte eventually let the hearing proceed without calling the panel into recess.
In his opening statement, Strzok said he has never allowed personal opinions to infect his work. He said that he knew information during the campaign that had the potential to damage Trump but never contemplated leaking it and that the focus on him by Congress is misguided and plays into “our enemies’ campaign to tear America apart.”
Strzok acknowledged that while his text message criticism was “blunt,” it was not directed at one person or political party and included jabs at Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders as well.
“Let me be clear, unequivocally and under oath: Not once in my 26 years of defending my nation did my personal opinions impact any official action I took,” he said.
Although Strzok has said through his lawyer that he was eager to tell his story, he made clear his vexation at being the focal point of a congressional hearing at a time when Russian interference has been “sowing discord in our nation and shaking faith in our institutions.”