FBI fires Peter Strzok, agent who sent anti-Trump texts
Peter Strzok, the FBI counterintelligence agent who came under withering criticism from Republicans for a series of anti-Trump text messages he sent during the 2016 campaign, was fired on Friday, his attorney said.
According to Strzok’s lawyer, Aitan Goelman, an internal disciplinary review had recommended Strzok’s demotion and a 60-day suspension. But Goelman said Monday that the deputy director of the FBI overruled that determination and decided to fire him.
“The decision to fire Special Agent Strzok is not only a departure from typical Bureau practice, but also contradicts Director Wray’s testimony to Congress and his assurances that the FBI intended to follow its regular process in this and all personnel matters,” Goelman said.
The FBI confirmed Strzok’s account Monday evening, attributing his punishment to “conduct highlighted by” the Justice Department’s internal watchdog.
The bureau also confirmed that it was Deputy Director David Bowdich who decided to stiffen the punishment against Strzok, despite internal reviewers recommending a suspension and demotion.
“The Deputy Director, as the senior career FBI official, has the delegated authority to review and modify any disciplinary findings and/or penalty as deemed necessary in the best interest of the FBI,” the bureau said in a statement.
President Donald Trump used Strzok’s firing to again push for special counsel Robert Mueller to wrap up the Russia probe that has dogged his time in office.
“Agent Peter Strzok was just fired from the FBI - finally. The list of bad players in the FBI & DOJ gets longer & longer. Based on the fact that Strzok was in charge of the Witch Hunt, will it be dropped? It is a total Hoax. No Collusion, No Obstruction - I just fight back!” Trump tweeted.
He then escalated his rhetoric, saying the FBI’s investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email server should be “redone.”
“Just fired Agent Strzok, formerly of the FBI, was in charge of the Crooked Hillary Clinton sham investigation. It was a total fraud on the American public and should be properly redone!” Trump wrote.
Trump has repeatedly assailed Strzok and former FBI attorney Lisa Page after text messages between the two became public and revealed their deep antipathy for the then-candidate. Strzok was a central figure in the investigations of Clinton’s private email server and the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia. Republicans, with Trump’s encouragement but despite findings to the contrary from the FBI’s inspector general, have alleged that anti-Trump sentiment by Strzok and others in the FBI tainted the bureau’s work on both probes.
Strzok, who testified to Congress last month, insisted that his personal political views — which are permitted by the bureau — had no bearing on his investigative decisions. But a slow release of batches of text messages to Congress, many of which have been made public, provided continual fodder for Strzok’s critics. His actions were the subject of an internal watchdog’s report that found no evidence that bias affected the Clinton probe but raised questions about the impression Strzok’s text messages — made on official FBI devices — had left.
Most notably, when Page asked Strzok in August 2016 if it were possible for Trump to become president, Strzok said he wouldn’t because “we’ll stop it.” Strzok told lawmakers that his comments were a response to Trump’s denigration of a Gold Star family at that time and that he meant voters would stop Trump’s election, not that the FBI would take action to intervene.
That the bureau broke from its internal disciplinary office to fire Strzok is a notable departure from the way it handled the ouster of former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. McCabe was fired earlier this year, just hours before he was set to retire, after Inspector General Michael Horowitz concluded he “lacked candor” with investigators. At that time, a review by the Office of Professional Responsibility found that McCabe should be fired, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions backed the decision.
Goelman said the decision to overrule OPR in Strzok’s case “should be deeply troubling to all Americans.” A GoFundMe site to raise money to cover Strzok’s legal costs had raised more than $24,000 by Monday afternoon.
"[I]n his decades of service, Special Agent Strzok has proved himself to be one of the country’s top counterintelligence officers, leading to only one conclusion — the decision to terminate was taken in response to political pressure, and to punish Special Agent Strzok for political speech protected by the First Amendment, not on a fair and independent examination of the facts,” Goelman said.
FBI Director Christopher Wray testified to Congress in June that the FBI investigation of Strzok would adhere to standard bureau procedures.
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) said Wray’s assertion raises questions about whether politics was a factor in the FBI’s decision to overrule the internal review process. In aletter to Wrayon Monday, Krishnamoorthi asked for assurances that political pressure was not a factor in the decision and for assurances that no White House officials got involved.