Strzok removed from FBI offices
Peter Strzok, the FBI agent who promised he’d make sure Donald Trump lost the election, was escorted out of agency headquarters last week.
His lawyer, Aitan Goelman, on Tuesday confirmed a report that his client left the building Friday with an escort during an internal review of his conduct, but said Strzok was still employed by the FBI.
“Pete has steadfastly played by the rules and respected the process, and yet he continues to be the target of unfounded personal attacks, political games and inappropriate information leaks,” Goelman said in a statement.
“Despite being put through a highly questionable process, Pete has complied with every FBI procedure, including being escorted from the building as part of the ongoing internal proceedings.”
Strzok’s behavior came up earlier Tuesday at a congressional hearing, where the inspector general of the Justice Department said the antiTrump views expressed by Strzok and gal pal Lisa Page, also an FBI employee, were “extremely serious [and] completely antithetical to the core values” of the agency and they wouldn’t have been allowed to work on his staff.
Testifying before the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees, IG Michael Horowitz said “it’s clear” the duo wanted to stop Trump from becoming president — but insisted that didn’t affect the outcomes of their investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail server.
However, Horowitz confirmed that the biases of the two will be part of his probe into how the Trump campaign became part of the investigation into Russian election meddling.
The most damning evidence Horowitz found in his Clinton e-mail probe was a text exchange between Strzok and Page in 2016.
“[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” Page texted Strzok.
“No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it,” Strzok said.
In the 500-plus-page report he released last week, Horowitz said the anti-Trump biases did not sway the final outcome of the case, which ultimately did not lead to charges against Clinton.
Horowitz stood by his conclusion that the decision not to prosecute was based on the prosecutors’ assessment of the facts, the law and past practice.
“This is the conclusion of all of us in the IG . . . that was our team conclusion of it,” Horowitz said.
“I hasten to add that we understand and recognize and state explicitly how serious the conduct was and how it cast a cloud over the whole investigation.”
But Republicans insisted the views of a few FBI agents rigged the outcome in favor of Clinton and demanded further investigation.
“I’m sorry, whether it was subconscious or conscious, you had a little throwaway to go to the Democrats,” said Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas).
“The fact is, bias is all the way through this, and I’m sorry that you were not able to see that with what is very obvious from your evidence.”