The FBI agent who sent political texts pledging to ‘stop Trump’ to a woman he was having an affair with inside the bureau and the president said he wanted fired has had his security clearance stripped away.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Thursday during a radio interview that Peter Strzok, an agent who worked on Hillary Clinton’s email case and the special counsel investigation in its early days, had to his knowledge lost access to sensitive government information.
‘Mr. Strzok, as I understand, has lost his security clearance,’ Sessions said on ‘The Howie Carr Show.’
Peter Strzok, deputy head of counterintelligence at the FBI, got reassigned from the Russia probe after it was discovered he had exchanged anti-Trump messages with FBI lawyer Lisa Page
The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for additional information on the employment status of the FBI agent who Trump called a ‘sick loser’ following ‘horrible’ messages that that Strozk exchanged with his FBI attorney Lisa Page during the Clinton investigation.
Strzok was escorted out the FBI last Friday following the release of an explosive Inspector General’s report.
That morning, the president told DailyMail.com he thought the FBI agent and other officials identified in the report for bad behavior should be fired.
‘I am amazed that Peter Strzok is still at the FBI, and so is everybody else that read that report,’ the president said. ‘And I’m not even talking about the report; I’m talking about long before the report. Peter Strzok should have been fired a long time ago, and others should have been fired.’
Various GOP lawmakers have also called for Strzok’s firing, including House Freedom Caucus head Rep. Mark Meadows.
However, Strzok is still on the job, CNN reported, having been placed in the Human Resources department while he is under review for the messages he exchanged with Page.
‘Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!’ Page once texted him.
‘No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it,’ Strzok wrote back.
President Trump has called Strzok a ‘sick loser’ and used the rebuke in the IG report to claim that he’s been personally exonerated.
‘Why was the FBI’s sick loser, Peter Strzok, working on the totally discredited Mueller team of 13 Angry & Conflicted Democrats, when Strzok was giving Crooked Hillary a free pass yet telling his lover, lawyer Lisa Page, that ‘we’ll stop’ Trump from becoming President?’ Trump earlier this month tweeted.
‘Witch Hunt!’ he concluded.
Trump said a week ago during an impromptu question and answer session with DailyMail.com and other reporters that ‘the horrible statements that Peter Strzok, the chief investigator, said’ about him prior to the special counsel investigation prove his own innocence.
‘I think that the report yesterday, maybe more importantly than anything, it totally exonerates me,’ he stated. ‘There was no collusion. There was no obstruction.’
Strzok was taken out of the building the same day following an internal review, his lawyer said this past Tuesday.
‘Pete has steadfastly played by the rules and respected the process, and yet he continues to be the target of unfounded personal attacks, political games and inappropriate information leaks,’ attorney Aitan Goelman said in a statement.
Strzok ‘intends to voluntarily appear and testify before your committee and any other Congressional committee that invites him,’ his lawyer told the head of the House Judiciary panel, who wants to subpoena him.
The Justice Department inspector general wrote in his report that Strzrok’s conduct ‘cast a cloud’ over the FBI’s actions.
However, the IG report found no evidence ‘to connect the political views expressed in these messages to the specific investigative decisions.’
Strzok was escorted after the building following revelations about his anti-Trump texts
Investigators are examining texts between Peter Strzok, deputy head of counterintelligence at the FBI, and Lisa Page (pictured) to see whether they were involved in media leaks