FBI fires agent who criticized president

WASHINGTON — Peter Strzok, the FBI senior counterintelligence agent who disparaged President Donald Trump in inflammatory text messages and helped oversee the Hillary Clinton email and Russia investigations, has been fired for violating bureau policies, Strzok’s lawyer said Monday.

Trump and his allies seized on the texts — exchanged during the 2016 campaign with a former FBI lawyer, Lisa Page — in assailing the Russia investigation as a “witch hunt.” Strzok was a key figure in the early months of the inquiry.

Strzok also was accused of sending a highly sensitive search warrant to his personal email account.

The FBI had been under immense political pressure by Trump to dismiss Strzok. The president has repeatedly denounced Strzok in posts on Twitter and on Monday expressed satisfaction that he had been sacked.

“Agent Peter Strzok was just fired from the FBI - finally. The list of bad players in the FBI & DOJ gets longer & longer. Based on the fact that Strzok was in charge of the Witch Hunt, will it be dropped? It is a total Hoax. No Collusion, No Obstruction - I just fight back!” Trump wrote.

He continued, “Just fired Agent Strzok, formerly of the FBI, was in charge of the Crooked Hillary Clinton sham investigation. It was a total fraud on the American public and should be properly redone!”

Strzok’s conduct was laid out in a wide-ranging inspector general’s report in June on how the FBI handled the investigation of Clinton’s emails in the run-up to the 2016 election. The report was critical of Strzok