FBI texts reveal agents’ admiration of Comey
WASHINGTON — The day in July 2016 that FBI Director James Comey defended the bureau’s decision in the Hillary Clinton email probe before Congress, two FBI officials traded admiring texts about his verbal dexterity — and mocking jibes at the lawmakers questioning him.
Congress, wrote FBI lawyer Lisa Page in one text, is “so utterly worthless.” “Less than worthless,” replied Peter Strzok, a seasoned FBI counterintelligence agent assigned to the Clinton investigation. “Utterly contemptible.”
The officials’ assessment of Comey, facing hours of questions about his decision not to seek charges against Clinton for her use of a private email server, was flattering.
“God he is SO good,” Strzok said. “I know,” Page responded. “Brilliant public speaker. And brilliant distillation of fact.”
That exchange is included among 384 pages of text messages between Page and Strzok provided by the Justice Department to Congress and reviewed by The Associated Press.
The texts, part of an inspector general investigation into the handling of the Clinton email probe, are most notable for derogatory messages about President Donald Trump — the discovery of which led to Strzok’s reassignment from special counsel Robert Mueller’s team. But they also include unguarded discussion about a variety of current events and public figures, including Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and an encryption court fight with Apple, plus candid assessments of their colleagues and their FBI careers and futures.
Among the thousands of texts, the dialogue about Comey is especially striking because it further calls into question White House characterizations of an FBI in “tatters,” where “countless” agents complained about their director before his removal.
Employee surveys released last year show FBI employees consistently gave Comey high marks. And emails published this week by the Lawfare blog show FBI field office leaders using words like “profound sadness” and “hard to understand” in spreading the news about Comey’s May 9 termination, one of the events now under investigation by Mueller for possible obstruction of justice.
The texts proved an explosive development when revealed in December, giving rise to Republican allegations of bias in the FBI and the Justice Department and leading Trump to make an extraordinary allegation of “treason” against Strzok that the agent’s lawyer dismissed as “beyond reckless.”
Trump responded to the latest disclosure of texts by tweeting Wednesday that the messages were “bombshells,” though it wasn’t clear what he was referring to.
Strzok was removed from Mueller’s group last summer after Mueller learned of the texts. Page, who’d also been detailed to that team, left that assignment before the messages were discovered.
Since then, amid attacks on the bureau, Director Christopher Wray has defended the FBI as home to “tens of thousands of brave men and women.” Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been more muted in his support, saying some criticism may be appropriate and that political bias “in either direction” must be eliminated.
There’s no question Strzok and Page were stridently opposed to Trump’s candidacy and the prospect of a Trump administration, using words such as “idiot,” “loathsome,” “menace” and “disaster” to describe him. In one text four days before the election, Page told Strzok that the “American presidential election, and thus, the state of the world, actually hangs in the balance.”