Peter Strzok, the FBI agent who was removed from Robert Mueller’s team over anti-Trump texts, also played a key role in writing a letter to lawmakers, which Hillary Clinton said derailed her campaign.
CNN obtained emails that showed that Strzok co-wrote what appears to be the first draft of a letter that then FBI Director James Comey eventually sent to Congress, telling them that more of Clinton’s emails were found – on the laptop of disgraced ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner – and the FBI would be reviewing them.
A source of the network’s said that Strzok was for reopening the Clinton investigation once the emails on Weiner’s laptop were discovered, which belonged to top Clinton aide Huma Abedin, the ex-congressman’s estranged wife.
Peter Strzok, according to new reporting from CNN, helped draft the controversial FBI letter that informed lawmakers that more emails had been found in the Hillary Clinton investigation and the bureau would look into them. The letter was sent 11 days before the election
Hillary Clinton, seen conceding the presidential race on November 9, 2016, to President-elect Donald Trump, has blamed the letter, signed by then FBI Director James Comey, for her loss in the presidential campaign
The FBI reopened the Clinton investigation because more emails were found on disgraced ex-congressman Anthony Weiner’s laptop. DailyMail.com first reported that Weiner had been sexting with a minor, prompting the FBI to investigate
Weiner’s laptop was handed over to the FBI after DailyMail.com broke the story that the serial sexter had done so with an underage girl.
Now he’s serving time in prison.
As for Strzok, whose Trump-dissing texts with his mistress, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, prompted him pushed from the special counsel’s investigation, the new information paints his politics in more of a grey light, as he wanted to pursue Clinton ‘aggressively’ too, a source told CNN.
Republicans have pointed to Strzok and Page’s messages – especially one where she references a ‘secret society’ – as evidence that the FBI is anti-Trump.
The president, too, has latched on to that narrative, with Trump even accusing Strzok of committing ‘treason,’ during an interview with the Wall Street Journal.
And Strzok did, according to CNN, have reservations about Comey making the letter about new Clinton emails public, just 11 days before the presidential election.
Strzok’s text messages, which were handed over to Congress, show him wrestling with the results of having the letter come out, CNN also said.
In an October 27, 2016 email Strzok tells colleagues that he and another agent have drafted ‘the first cut’ of a letter that was to inform lawmakers of the bureau’s decision to reopen the Clinton email investigation.
Further correspondence, read by CNN, had colleagues making comments and changes to Strzok’s draft, which was passed along to Comey by the FBI’s Chief of Staff James Rybicki.
On October 28, 2016, with the election a week and a half away, Comey sent the finalized draft to Congress.
This move is now often looked upon as the turning point in the campaign.
Two sources also told CNN that there’s a text message from Page to Strzok in which she wasn’t sure if the FBI should release a public statement, a sentiment Strzok agreed with.
Those messages came on November 6, the same day Comey did send out a message, to again close the Clinton investigation, with just two days of the campaign to go.
‘If the election had been on October 27, I would be your president,’ Clinton later said after losing the presidency to Donald Trump.