Tag: Peter Strzok

Knoxville Man Sentenced to Federal Prison for ‘Heave-Ho’ on January 6

Peter D'Abrosca

A Knoxville man who was sentenced to four months in prison and two years of supervised release, including, the first four months in the form of home detention, “heave-ho’d’ his way to prison, according to the United State’s District Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia (USADC). 

The sentence was levied against Michael Asbury, 44, of Knoxville, after he pleaded guilty to one felony count of obstruction of justice during a civil disorder, an obscure federal charge that has been levied against many people who attended the riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. 

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Victor Davis Hanson Commentary: Understanding How Left-Wing Conspiracies Work

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Donald Trump

Since 2016, there has been a clear pattern to left-wing conspiracies — beyond the obvious fact that they traffic in lies, stereotypes, and paranoia to serve precise political agendas.

We now know that the conspiracy to cook up the Russian-collusion hoax — Donald Trump allegedly conniving with Vladimir Putin to rig the 2016 vote — was perpetrated by the Hillary Clinton campaign. Its funding was hidden by the Democratic National Committee, the law firm Perkins Coie, and Fusion GPS.

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Senators Want to Know Why Former FBI Officials Refused to Cooperate With Durham Investigation

M.D. Kittle

U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) want Special Counsel John Durham to explain why former high-level government officials refused to cooperate with his investigation exposing the FBI for its many failures in the bogus Trump-Russia collusion probe. 

Grassley, ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, and Johnson, ranking member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, sent Durham a letter Tuesday asking why former FBI Director James Comey, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and former FBI Assistant Director of the Counterintelligence Division Peter Strzok declined to fully cooperate.

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Commentary: Abandon the Swamp and Let it Rot

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Suppose a document drops in the wilderness and no one is around to hear it. Does it make a sound? I submit that John Durham just tested this Bishop Berkeleyesque query. The special counsel spent four years beavering away in the forests of the deep state and what did he produce? Three hundred pages telling us what, for the most part, we already knew and with the result that exactly nothing, apart from a little hand wringing, will happen. 

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Commentary: Peter Strzok Remains Exhibit A of the FBI’s Politicization

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Before the Trump era, members of official Washington who held ostensibly nonpartisan positions of public trust made some effort to conceal their biases. Indeed, many of these figures would hold themselves out as uniquely apolitical and dispassionate. But sheer hatred of Donald Trump has made them throw off that mask. Turn on MSNBC or CNN at almost any hour of the day and you will hear their liberal ranting.

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Commentary: It’s Time to Dismantle the Dysfunctional, Self-Serving, Gluttonous Company Town That Is D.C.

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Gertrude Stein famously warned that it was important to know how far to go when going too far.

It pains me to admit that Democrats seem to have a far better sense of all that than do Republicans. Perhaps it’s because Democrats have a visceral appreciation of William Hazlitt’s observation that “those who lack delicacy hold us in their power.” The Democrats, that is to say, long ago became expert at the game of holding their opponents to standards that they themselves violate not just with impunity but with ostentatious glee.

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Strzok Messages Refer to Audio Recording of Trump Aide’s Phone Call with Fox Executive

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Internal FBI messages declassified this month make a cryptic reference to an audio recording of a conversation between a Fox News executive and George Papadopoulos, a revelation that the former Trump campaign aide calls “disturbing.”

The message in question is from the Lync account of Peter Strzok, who was the FBI’s lead investigator on Crossfire Hurricane, the counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign.

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Peter Strzok’s Declassified Messages Give Insider View of FBI’s Trump Campaign Probe

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The Justice Department declassified a batch of internal FBI messages from Peter Strzok, the former counterintelligence official who oversaw the bureau’s investigation of the Trump campaign’s possible ties to Russia.

The messages, which Senate Republicans released Thursday, provide new insights into the thinking of investigators who worked on Crossfire Hurricane, the code name for the investigation into the Trump campaign.

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Peter Strzok Defends FBI Against FISA Abuse Allegations, Says Agents Were ‘Overworked’

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Former FBI official Peter Strzok defended the bureau’s surveillance of former Trump aide Carter Page in an interview aired Sunday, attributing failures found in a government watchdog report to agents being “overworked.”

“I don’t think at all that it’s anything improper. You get people who are overworked, who make mistakes — and don’t get me wrong, inexcusable mistakes,” Strzok said in an interview with “CBS Sunday Morning.”

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EXCLUSIVE: Female U.K. Scholar False-Flagged as Flynn’s Russian Spy Recruiter

Neil W. McCabe

  The Cambridge University academic portrayed in the mainstream media as retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn’s Russian mistress and spy recruiter told the Star Newspapers about her ordeal—caught in the web of fake news and the Russian Collusion Hoax. “In April 2016, the Obama administration renewed General Flynn’s security clearance—it was a top secret/sci, sensitive compartmentalized information, it is the highest clearance there is—so all is fine but, then suddenly in August 2016, the FBI start secretly investigating him for being a Russian spy—that is why they needed me to be his recruiter,’ said Svetlana Lokhova, a former By-Fellow of Cambridge’s Churchill College. Margot Cleveland wrote for The Federalist: “This honey pot storyline originated with Lokhova’s mentor at Cambridge, the official MI5 historian, Professor Christopher Andrew, when on February 19, 2017, Andrew penned an article for the London Sunday Times, “Impulsive General Misha Shoots Himself in the Foot.” The Times article is no longer available, but Cleveland continued: “That article portrayed the unnamed Lokhova’s brief meeting with Flynn during a dinner event two years prior at Cambridge as the beginning of a compromising relationship between Flynn and a Russian spy.” Luke Harding, one of the earliest and most prolific…

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Commentary: The Rise of America’s ‘Putin-ized’ Intelligence Community

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“Oppressors,” James Madison once wrote, “can tyrannize only when they achieve a standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed populace.” Our forefathers feared a large but idle military interfering with domestic politics or even taking power. Within our own hemisphere, a Latin American government is more likely to be toppled by its own army than by a foreign invader.

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One America News Network’s Neil McCabe Joins the Tennessee Star Report to Discuss Robert Mueller’s Testimony

Julie Carr

  On Tuesday’s Tennessee Star Report with Steve Gill and Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 am to 8:00 am – Gill and Leahy talked to One America News Networks Neil McCabe about Mueller’s upcoming testimony and how the Democrats hope that he will say things that were not in the report in effort to open up impeachment hearings. The team noted that if Mueller does answer questions from Democrats that this would leave the window open for Republicans to hold him in contempt. Towards the end of the segment, the team discussed the possibility that the Mueller team had been leaking to Democrats during the entire investigation. Gill: A lot of stuff going on and to help us sort out some of it, Neil McCabe from One America News Network. Neil, good to have you back with us. McCabe: Hey, good morning. How’s it going? Gill: It tires me out just going down the list of all the stuff that’s going to happen. Leahy: Yeah. Neil, so you interviewed reporter John Solomon the other day. What did he have to tell you about James Comey and Robert Mueller? McCabe: What’s interesting is everyone talks about the Mueller…

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Comey Says Strzok Damaged FBI’s Reputation, Undermined Trump-Russia Probe

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by Chuck Ross   Former FBI Director James Comey acknowledged Thursday that former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page damaged the bureau’s reputation and possibly undermined the Trump-Russia investigation by exchanging text messages bashing President Donald Trump. “So do you acknowledge that this whole episode with Strzok and Page, that it damaged the reputation of the FBI and perhaps tarnished the investigation?” CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked Comey at a town hall event. “Definitely. Yeah, very painful,” Comey said. Comey also said that former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe deserved “severe consequences” for making false statements to Justice Department and FBI investigators regarding the authorization of media leaks. Comey blasted Trump throughout the town hall event. He also criticized Attorney General William Barr’s handling of the special counsel’s Russia report. But it was Comey’s comments about his former FBI colleagues that stood out from his normal anti-Trump commentary. “It was important that it be investigated and important that there be discipline that follows it, but, yeah, it made us all look bad,” Comey said of the Strzok-Page texts. Comey said that while Strzok was a “very talented agent,” his text messages “hurt the institution.” Strzok opened the FBI’s investigation of the…

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Commentary: A Tight and Tangled ‘Collusion’ Web

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by Roger Kimball   Most people reading this will know Sir Walter Scott’s famous couplet (from the narrative poem Marmion): Oh, what a tangled web we weave When first we practise to deceive! Less well known, but undeservedly so, is the excellent completing couplet by J. R. Pope, published under the sly title “A Word of Encouragement”: But when we’ve practiced for a while, How vastly we improve our style! Indeed. You really have to give it to the suits in Barack Obama’s intelligence services and Department of Justice (many of whom, of course, are still strutting about in Donald Trump’s administration). It was quite a web they wove, and tangled with complexity. Yet their prodigious practice also made it nearly impenetrable to anyone not inside their charmed circle. That adamantine carapace of impenetrability is a sign of their high style, their assiduity, the reason that a “word of encouragement” did not come amiss. Put your hand on your heart. Can you really tell me what happened and who all the major players are in the Get Trump farce that has been occupying the nation for more than two years now? There have been various worthy efforts to unpack the drama—I’ve made a…

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Disgraced FBI Officials Claimed ‘Insurance Policy’ Text Was About Whether to ‘Burn Longstanding Sources’

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by Chuck Ross   Former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page claimed in congressional testimony last year that their infamous “insurance policy” text message was a reference to an internal FBI discussion about whether to potentially expose a longtime bureau source by mounting an aggressive investigation against the Trump campaign. “As I sort of explained, if he is not going to be President, then we don’t need to burn longstanding sources and risk sort of the loss of future investigative outlets, not in this case, but in other Russia-related matters,” Lisa Page told lawmakers on July 13, 2018, according to portions of a transcript confirmed by The Daily Caller News Foundation. In testimony on June 27, 2018, Strzok claimed that his text message discussion with Page concerned whether to open up a “very sensitive source” to exposure in the investigation. The text message that Strzok and Page sought to explain was sent on Aug. 15, 2016, around two weeks after the FBI opened “Crossfire Hurricane,” the counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign. “I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office — that there’s no way [Trump] gets elected — but I’m afraid we…

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Commentary: The Real Reason Democrats Have Postponed Barr’s Confirmation Is All About ‘Russia’ and 2020

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by Julie Kelly   After what seemed to be a done deal following a relatively smooth public hearing last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee now has delayed until February 7 the vote to confirm William Barr, President Trump’s nominee for attorney general. The reason, according to news reports, is lingering concerns about how Trump’s incoming attorney general would manage the investigation of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, which is soon expected to conclude. Despite Barr’s repeated assurances that he will follow Justice Department rules in his handling of Mueller’s final report, as well as a pledge to resist any attempted interference by the White House, Democrats on the committee remain unconvinced. “[Barr’s] answer was not particularly reassuring or clear as to the public disclosure of the Mueller report,” Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell earlier this week. Democrats also have accused Barr of bias against the Mueller investigation based on a detailed memo he authored last year that objected to the special counsel’s reported interest in whether President Trump obstructed justice. Some have suggested Barr should recuse himself from the investigation, which would be a repeat of a terrible mistake made by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions in 2017. The committee’s vote is scheduled to take…

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New Text Messages Show FBI Officials Discussed ‘Media Leak Strategy’ Ahead Of Major Trump-Russia Revelation

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McCabe Page and Strzock

by Chuck Ross   Newly released text messages show that disgraced FBI official Peter Strzok asked to speak to former FBI lawyer Lisa Page about a “media leak strategy” during a crucial period of the Trump-Russia investigation last year. The text messages were revealed on Monday by North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows, a member of the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee. “Our review of these new documents raises grave concerns regarding an apparent systemic culture of media leaking by high-ranking officials at the FBI and DOJ related to ongoing investigations,” Meadows wrote to Rosenstein in the letter, which was obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation and first reported by Sara Carter. Meadows pointed to text messages that Strzok sent to Page on April 10, 2017 and April 12, 2017. In the first message, Strzok, who then served as deputy chief of the FBI’s counterintelligence division, wrote to Page that: “I had literally just gone to find this phone to tell you I want to talk to you about media leak strategy with DOJ before you go.” Strzok was at that time the lead investigator on the FBI’s probe into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government. He joined…

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New Text Messages Show FBI Officials Discussed ‘Media Leak Strategy’ Ahead Of Major Trump-Russia Revelation

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McCabe Page and Strzock

by Chuck Ross   Newly released text messages show that disgraced FBI official Peter Strzok asked to speak to former FBI lawyer Lisa Page about a “media leak strategy” during a crucial period of the Trump-Russia investigation last year. The text messages were revealed on Monday by North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows, a member of the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee. “Our review of these new documents raises grave concerns regarding an apparent systemic culture of media leaking by high-ranking officials at the FBI and DOJ related to ongoing investigations,” Meadows wrote to Rosenstein in the letter, which was obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation and first reported by Sara Carter. Meadows pointed to text messages that Strzok sent to Page on April 10, 2017 and April 12, 2017. In the first message, Strzok, who then served as deputy chief of the FBI’s counterintelligence division, wrote to Page that: “I had literally just gone to find this phone to tell you I want to talk to you about media leak strategy with DOJ before you go.” Strzok was at that time the lead investigator on the FBI’s probe into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government. He joined…

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Steve Cohen Will Push For Nancy Pelosi as Next Speaker of the House

Chris Butler
Steve Cohen

If Democrats retake the U.S. House of Representatives this fall then U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Memphis, said he’ll support Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House yet again. Cohen made his remarks on MSNBC this past weekend. While there, he also called Republican President Donald Trump “a maniac.” No one from Cohen’s office returned The Tennessee Star’s request for comment this week. Cohen said Pelosi is “the strongest, most experienced, and best tactician there is.” “When you have someone to stand up to the most corrupt president, the most bullying president we have ever had and fight to create health care, fight to create jobs and fight to end the culture of corruption he has created in Washington then you want Nancy Pelosi,” Cohen said. “She is a proven leader. She is a star. She doesn’t back up to anybody. The people who vote for Democratic candidates will want a check and balance on Donald Trump. You don’t put a rookie in the big game of the World Series or the seventh game of the NBA. You go in with the pro who has been there and delivered.” Pelosi will never back down to Trump, Cohen went on to say.…

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The Clinton State Department’s Major Security Breach That Everyone Is Ignoring

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Hillary Clinton

by Hans von Spakovsky   Peter Strzok’s testimony about the email server scandal involving former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton raised headlines because of his defiant, disrespectful, and unapologetic attitude about the bias revealed in his text messages that permeated his work at the FBI. Then, there was the verbal combat between him, Republican members of the two committees holding the joint hearing, and Democratic members who were running interference for Strzok and acting as his defense counsel. The news media jumped on an exchange in which Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, asked Strzok if he lied to his wife about his affair with former FBI lawyer Lisa Page in the same way as he was in testifying to Congress. That was too much for the Democrats and the media, who leaped to Strzok’s defense. The media, however, virtually ignored another exchange between Gohmert and Strzok that revealed a potential bombshell.  Gohmert asked Strzok about his meeting in 2016 with Frank Rucker and Janette McMillan, an investigator and lawyer, respectively, for then-Intelligence Community Inspector General Chuck McCullough (an Obama appointee). McCullough sent them to see Strzok, who was the FBI’s deputy assistant director for the Counterintelligence Division, to brief him and three…

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Democrat Steve Cohen Tries to Walk Back Purple Heart Slur of Veterans

Jason M. Reynolds
Steve Cohen

U.S. Rep Steve Cohen (D-TN) wants to take it back after drawing fire for flippantly telling anti-Trump FBI lovebird Peter Strzok he wanted to give him a Purple Heart during a Congressional hearing. The Memphis Democrat made the remark during the disgraced FBI agent’s heated testimony in front of the House Oversight and Judiciary committees regarding his bias against President Donald Trump. For an analysis of the hearing, click here. Even reporter Aaron Blake of the Washington Post was dumbfounded: https://twitter.com/AaronBlake/status/1017476103794028550?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Now, Cohen wants to take it back. Newsmax quoted his interview with CNN’s Ana Cabrera: “I regret using the term ‘Purple Heart. I used it metaphorically, not literally. I never thought, literally, it should be given to Agent Strzok,” he said. The Purple Heart is given to U.S. service members who are wounded or are killed during combat. The apology may be too little, too late. Some veterans in Tennessee say they’re planning a protest march in protest of Cohen’s remark, Fox News reports. Sean Higgins, an Air Force veteran from Memphis, is leading the upcoming march, The Tennessean reported. Higgins said many constituents are “p****d as hell” after Cohen said Strzok deserved the military award. “How do you compare…

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Seven Takeaways From FBI Agent Strzok’s Testimony Before Two House Committees

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Peter Strzok

by Fred Lucas   A joint hearing of two House committees Thursday repeatedly turned testy as FBI agent Peter Strzok sought to explain away text messages sharply critical of Donald Trump and how they did not affect the fairness of the FBI investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Strzok, reassigned but still an FBI employee, admitted “it’s fair to say I’m not a fan” of Trump. But he insisted that the Russia investigation is legitimate, contrary to Trump’s characterization of it. “In the summer of 2016, we had an urgent need to protect the integrity of an American presidential election from a hostile foreign power determined to weaken and divide the United States of America,” Strzok told lawmakers. “This investigation is not politically motivated. It is not a witch hunt. It is not a hoax.” The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the House Judiciary Committee held the joint hearing. The following are the big takeaways. [The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out more ] 1. Denying Bias, Admitting Regret Throughout the hearing, Strzok continuously denied being biased. “Having worked in national…

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Democrat Rep. Steve Cohen to Anti-Trump FBI Lovebird: ‘Mr. Strzok, If I Could Give You a Purple Heart, I Would’

John Bryant
Steve Cohen, Peter Strzok

Even reporter Aaron Blake of the Washington Post seemed stunned at what came out of the mouth of Tennessee’s own Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN-09). https://twitter.com/aaronblake/status/1017476103794028550?s=12 CBS has a slightly more detailed report. Evidently cohen believes the hearings are little more than a distraction and went out of  his way to praise Strzok. Rep. Cohen says this hearing is just a distraction. “If I could give you a purple heart, I would,” Rep. Steve Cohen said, calling the hearing an “attack” on Strzok. Cohen criticized the hearing as a distraction from Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and a way to discredit Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. “It’s astonishing to me that you would be put on trial as you have today,” Cohen said, praising Strzok’s work in security. What an insult to wounded service members: Democrat Rep. Steve Cohen tells disgraced FBI agent Strzok: "If I could give you a Purple Heart, I would. You deserve one." pic.twitter.com/G47C5GhSLk — Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) July 12, 2018 The above may come as no surprise to those familiar with Rep. Cohen, no friend of President Donald Trump. Just yesterday he called for an end to all public spending at any business owned…

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FBI Official Peter Strzok Testifies About Anti-Trump Text Messages

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Peter Strzok

by Masood Farivar   A top FBI official at the center of controversy over alleged political bias at the bureau said on Thursday that his private views about President Donald Trump did not influence his actions as the lead investigator on the Hillary Clinton email investigation team. Testifying publicly for the first time during a tense Congressional hearing, Peter Strzok, a deputy assistant FBI director, said a series of anti-Trump and pro-Clinton emails he exchanged with former FBI lawyer Lisa Page during the 2016 presidential election had no impact on his actions as an investigator for the FBI. “Let me be clear, unequivocally and under oath: not once in my 26 years of defending my nation did my personal opinions impact any official action I took,” Strzok told a joint hearing by the house judiciary and government oversight committees. Strzok later worked on Special Council Robert Mueller’s investigation of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and allegations of collusion with Russiauntil last year, when he was removed after the text messages came to light. Strzok said he was removed not because of his anti-Trump “bias” but because of Mueller was concerned about the “appearance of bias” the text messages cast over the Russia…

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DOJ IG: McCabe Used Strzok’s Mistress To Bypass Chain Of Command To Monitor Clinton Probe

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McCabe Page and Strzock

by Luke Rosiak    – Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe used Peter Strzok’s mistress, Lisa Page, to get information on the FBI probe into investigation of Clinton’s private servery  – McCabe used Page to “circumvented the official chain of command”  – Other bureau officials took issue with the decision Then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe tasked the mistress of lead agent Peter Strzok to stay appraised of the probe into Hillary Clinton’s private server — a decision that other bureau officials took issue with at the time, according to the Department of Justice Inspector General’s bombshell report. McCabe was supposed to be insulated from the probe by two levels of management: Strzok worked for counterintelligence head Bill Priestap, who worked for national security head Michael Steinbach, who reported up to McCabe. However, Strzok communicated about the probe with his mistress, Lisa Page, who worked directly for McCabe and acted as a liaison for the Clinton investigation for the deputy director. The report says: Lisa Page, who was Special Counsel to McCabe, became involved in the Midyear investigation after McCabe became the Deputy Director in February 2016. Page told the OIG that part of her function was to serve as a liaison between the Midyear team and…

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FBI Agent Peter Strzok’s Anti-Trump Text Messages Handed Over to Congress

Tennessee Star Staff

The FBI official removed from Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation repeatedly mocked Donald Trump, referring to him as a “douche,” and expressed concern over what would happen to the U.S. if he was elected, according to copies of text messages the agent sent. The Justice Department turned over 375 messages between counterintelligence investigator Peter Strzrok and…

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