FBI debated in 2016 how aggressively to probe Trump campaign

WASHINGTON—During the early days of the Russia investigation, FBI officials debated whether Donald Trump’s chance of winning should factor into how aggressively they investigated potential coordination between his campaign and the Kremlin, two FBI officials told Congress last year, according to newly released transcripts of their interviews.

Peter Strzok, the former FBI agent who helped lead the investigation, told lawmakers in a closed-door interview that the FBI had received information from an “extremely sensitive source” alleging collusion between the government of Russia and members of the Trump campaign.

FBI officials, including then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, debated internally how vigorously to follow up on that information given that Democrat Hillary Clinton was seen at the time as likely to defeat Trump, and an aggressive investigation had the potential of exposing the source.

Strzok recalled that he disagreed that a candidate’s electability should be part of the equation.

“If there are members of the Trump campaign who are actively illegally colluding with the government of Russia, that’s something the American people need to know, that’s something candidate Trump potentially needs to know. And equally, if they aren’t guilty of anything, that’s also important,” Strzok said.

“So my statement there is: We can’t consider, we can’t take into consideration, the likelihood or unlikelihood of anybody’s electoral process. We need to go, based on the gravity of this allegation, go investigate it and get to the bottom of it.”

The comments were made during a closed-door interview in June 2018 with members of the House judiciary and oversight committees.

The top Republican on the Judiciary panel, Rep. Doug Collins, released a transcript of the interview Thursday as part of an ongoing effort to paint the early days of the Russia investigation as tainted by law enforcement bias.

In the past week, Collins has released transcripts of similar interviews with Justice Department official Bruce Ohr and ex-FBI lawyer Lisa Page, with whom Strzok exchanged antiTrump text messages during the 2016 election and investigations into his campaign.

Those text messages have made Strzok and Page particular targets of outrage from Republicans and from Trump. Strzok was removed from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigative team following the discovery of the texts and was later fired from the FBI. Page has since left the bureau.

In a statement Thursday, Strzok attorney Aitan Goelman said his client welcomed the release of the transcript.