Senior FBI official Peter Strzok says he didn’t arrange a cocktail party with a federal judge who serves on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, despite telling his mistress in a text message that he would.
Strzok suggested a “cocktail party” with U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras in a July 25, 2016, message to FBI attorney Lisa Page. Days later, on July 31, Strzok opened the FBI’s probe of possible Trump campaign collusion with Russia.
Strzok told the Justice Department inspector general’s office that his messages regarding the judge dealt with no particular case and that the social gathering didn’t happen, according to a report released Thursday on the FBI’s Hillary Clinton email investigation.
Contreras mysteriously recused himself from former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s case in December after he accepted Flynn’s guilty plea in regard to lying to the FBI, warning him to cooperate for a lighter sentence.
Strzok was removed last year from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe after the discovery of messages he sent to Page denouncing Trump. His link to Contreras was first reported in March, after lawmakers obtained messages referencing the possible “cocktail party.”
“Rudy is on the FISC! Did you know that?” Page texted Strzok.
“We talked about it before and after. I need to get together with him,” Strzok responded, discussing “being circumspect in talking to him in terms of not placing him into a situation where he’d have to recuse himself.”
“[H]e’s super thoughtful and rigorous about ethics and conflicts. M suggested a social setting with others would probably be better than a one on one meeting. I’m sorry, I’m just going to have to invite you to that cocktail party,” Strzok wrote to Page. – READ MORE
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