Thousands of FBI cellphones were affected by the technical glitch that the DOJ says prevented five months’ worth of text messages between FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page from being stored or uploaded into the bureau’s archive system, federal law enforcement officials tell Fox News.
The missing messages have been at the center of a storm of controversy on Capitol Hill, after the DOJ notified congressional committees that there is a gap in records between Dec. 14, 2016, and May 17, 2017. Strzok and Page are under scrutiny after it was revealed that the former members of Robert Mueller’s team exchanged a series of anti-Trump texts during the presidential campaign.
The gap in records covered a crucial period, raising suspicion among GOP lawmakers about how those messages disappeared.
But Fox News is told that the glitch affected the phones of “nearly” 10 percent of the FBI’s 35,000 employees.
Senior Department of Justice officials told Fox News they are “taking steps” to possibly recover the texts from the appropriate cellphone carriers. The same officials told Fox News they are also making every effort to track down the physical cellphones in question so they could be subject to a forensic review. – READ MORE
[give_form id=”79809″] [divider][/divider]The former FBI counterintelligence deputy chief assigned to oversee the the probe into alleged Trump campaign collusion with the Russian government seemed to suggested it could end in impeachment, according to new phone texts turned over by the FBI.
Peter Strzok, in an email to a top FBI lawyer who he was also involved with, mentioned “impeachment” as he texted about taking the position with former FBI Chief Robert Muller.
In a text to Lisa Page, the top FBI lawyer and his mistress, he also called the Russia probe historic.
At 12:13 am on May 19, two days after Mueller was appointed to head the investigation, Strzok indicates that initially he didn’t want to take a position on the probe. “My answer is no way,” he texted Page, according to one of several texts provided to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee headed by Wisconsin Republican Ron Johnson.
“And then I think…” he tests, “A case which will be in the history books.”
He concluded that while “a million” people simply have staff jobs in the agency, “this is a chance to DO. In maybe the most important case of our lives.”
At the duo text well past midnight, he wrote at 12:41 a.m., “An investigation leading to impeachment?” – READ MORE
[give_form id=”79809″] [divider][/divider]New text messages allegedly reveal that controversial FBI official Peter Strzok was hesitant about joining Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation team because of his “gut sense” there would be “no big there there.”
Strzok and FBI colleague Lisa Page, who were romantically involved, are under fire for trading anti-Trump messages during the 2016 race.
But Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who has received 384 pages of new text messages between them, released a string of messages Tuesday seemingly showing that Strzok wrestled with whether to join the Mueller probe amid doubts about the allegations.
Johnson first discussed the messages during a Tuesday radio interview.
“It indicates they’re considering joining the Mueller special counsel investigation,” Johnson said on “The Jay Weber Show” on Fox News Radio affiliate WISN. “… He doesn’t really want to join that because his gut sense is there’s no big there there. I think that’s kind of shocking.” – READ MORE
[give_form id=”79809″] [divider][/divider]Text messages between two FBI officials involved in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia probe have caused concern over the objectivity of the investigation, as they revealed a clear distaste for Donald Trump.
Considering the concerns about the investigation that have already come up, Ratcliffe said he wanted to know what that means:
We learned today about information that in the immediate aftermath of [Trump’s] election, that there may have been a secret society of folks within the Department of Justice and the FBI — to include Page and Strzok — that would be working against him. …
I’m not saying that actually happened, but when folks speak in those terms, they need to come forward to explain the context with which they used those terms. – READ MORE
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