Lost FBI text messages spark Justice Department probe

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department’s inspector general is investigating why the FBI did not retain text messages for five months including those exchanged by two senior officials involved in the probes of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said late Monday that he has spoken to Inspector General Michael Horowitz about the missing text messages and “a review is already underway to ascertain what occurred” and determine whether the missing text messages can be recovered.

Sessions’ statement came after Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee wrote a letter last weekend to FBI Director Christopher Wray asking the FBI to explain in more detail why it did not preserve text messages between senior FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page between “approximately December 14, 2016 and May 17, 2017.”

Strzok was removed from the Trump probe last summer after internal investigators discovered he and Page exchanged texts that were anti-Trump and pro-Clinton during FBI investigations of both candidates who were running for president.

The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee received 384 pages of new Strzok-Page texts on Friday.

But Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd wrote that the FBI’s “technical system for retaining text messages” sent and received on FBI mobile devices failed to preserve text messages between Strzok and Page from Dec. 14, 2016, to approximately May 17, 2017. That was the date Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein tapped Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate contacts between Trump’s campaign and Russia.