Text messages between an FBI agent and a lawyer on special counsel Robert Mueller’s team investigating alleged ties between Russian officials and President Donald Trump’s campaign suggest they both knew the outcome of the Hillary Clinton email probe in advance.
The Justice Department on Friday turned over to Congress nearly 400 pages of text messages sent between FBI investigator Peter Strzok and lawyer Lisa Page.
Strzok was removed from Mueller’s team after an internal investigation revealed that he had sent anti-Trump messages. Page left the team before the texts became public.
FBI investigator Peter Strzok (left) and lawyer Lisa Page (right) were both removed from special counsel Robert Mueller’s team investigating ties between President Donald Trump and Russian officials
During the Trump investigation and a probe into Hillary Clinton (pictured) using a private email server, Page and Strzok exchanged text messages suggesting they they knew in advance that Clinton would not be criminally charged
According to Fox News, one exchange between Page and Strzok suggests that they knew Hillary Clinton would not be charged in an FBI probe of her using a private email server.
In the messages, sent July 1, 2016, Page and Strzok discussed then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s decision to accept the FBI’s conclusion in the Clinton investigation.
‘Timing looks like hell,’ Strzok said.
‘Yeah, that is awful timing,’ Page responded, adding in another message: ‘It’s a real profile in courag(e), since she knows no charges will be brought’.
Just a few days after those messages were sent, former FBI Director James Comey announced that no charges would be brought against Clinton even though he referred to the Democratic presidential candidate’s use of the private email server as ‘extremely careless’.
Other text messages exchanged between Page and Strzok, who were romantically involved, referenced a change in a statement Comey had prepared in anticipation of closing the Clinton investigation without criminal charges.
Other text messages between Page and Strzok focused on their opinions of President Trump (pictured) and other public figures
In an early draft of the statement, it said that Clinton and President Barack Obama had an email exchange while Clinton was ‘on the territory’ of a hostile adversary, Fox reports. The Obama reference was later changed to ‘senior government official’ and then omitted entirely in the final version.
When turning over the messages to Congress, the Justice Department noted that five months of texts between Page and Strzok were missing because the FBI had been unable to preserve and retrieve messages sent between December 14, 2016 and May 17, 2017.
Last month, the Justice Department released hundreds of text messages Page and Strzok had exchanged before becoming part of Mueller’s team of investigators. Many of those messages were about the 2016 election and their personal thoughts on Clinton and Trump.