Republicans grill FBI agent who said he would ‘stop’ Trump
WASHINGTON — An FBI agent who worked on separate investigations into Democrat Hillary Clinton and President Donald Trump’s campaign defended himself behind closed doors to two House committees Wednesday as GOP lawmakers stepped up efforts to highlight what they say is bias at the Justice Department.
Peter Strzok exchanged anti-Trump texts with a colleague, FBI attorney Lisa Page, as both worked on the Clinton investigation and briefly on special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into ties between Trump’s campaign and Russia. House Republicans have seized on the texts as part of investigations into the Justice Department, the FBI and decisions that both made during the 2016 presidential election. In one of the texts, from August 2016, Strzok wrote, “We’ll stop it,” in reference to a potential Trump election win.
The barrage of GOP criticism against the Justice Department comes just a few months before the midterm elections, and amid intense sparring between the parties over the FBI’s role in the Russia probe. The House is expected to vote today on a resolution demanding the department hand over thousands of documents that Congress has requested by July 6. The resolution was approved by the House Judiciary Committee.
Democrats have accused Republicans of trying to undermine Mueller’s investigation for political gain.
Strzok’s questioning was still going Wednesday evening, nine hours after it had started and showed no signs of ending. Lawmakers were still expected to take Strzok into a classified session Wednesday to ask the most sensitive questions.
The interview also showed no signs of changing entrenched opinions — Republicans leaving for breaks appeared unconvinced by an internal Justice Department report released earlier this month that detailed Strzok and Page’s texts but ultimately found no evidence that bias affected the decision not to bring charges against Clinton.
Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said in an interview that bias is “pervasive” and “impossible to separate out.”
Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., one of the most vocal critics of the Justice Department, said midway through the interview that while it’s possible Strzok’s individual bias didn’t affect the Clinton investigation, he believes that “what we are finding is the text messages were indicative of other decisions that were made or not made throughout the initiation of the Russia investigation” in the summer of 2016.
Frustrated Democrats called the interview a farce.
“I do believe this is an attempt to shine some negative light on what special counsel Mueller is doing,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Oversight panel.