President Trump exposed Sunday that news reports about an FBI agent on the agency’s Hillary Clinton email
“Report: ‘ANTI-TRUMP FBI AGENT LED CLINTON EMAIL PROBE’ Now it all starts to make sense!” Trump said in one of three tweets Sunday on the issue.
The office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller confirmed with Fox News on Saturday that agent Peter Strzok had been removed from Mueller’s investigation into Russia collusion after the Justice Department’s inspector general started examining Strzok’s electronic messages with a colleague, which reportedly included ones that were anti-Trump and pro-Hillary Clinton.
Report: “ANTI-TRUMP FBI AGENT LED CLINTON EMAIL PROBE” Now it all starts to make sense!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 3, 2017
Strzok worked on the FBI investigation last year into whether Clinton, then the Democratic presidential nominee, mishandled classified information through her use of private email servers while secretary of state.
The federal investigation was led by then-FBI Director James Comey, who concluded the probe in July 2016, about four months before Election Day. Comey said Clinton had been “extremely careless,” but recommend to then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch that she not pursue criminal charges.
Lynch had recused herself from the investigation after talking privately with Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton.
Two senior Justice Department officials confirmed to Fox News last Saturday that the agency’s Office of Inspector General is reviewing the role played by Strzok in the Clinton investigation.
“Tainted (no, very dishonest?) FBI ‘agent’s role in Clinton probe under review.’ Led Clinton Email probe. @foxandfriends Clinton money going to wife of another FBI agent in charge,” Trump said in one of the other tweets Sunday.
During testimony in May, Comey said he believed the tarmac meeting undermined the Justice Department’s credibility on the Clinton email case; and Comey also revealed Lynch directed him to describe the investigation into Clinton a “matter,” wording that aligned with the Clinton campaign’s framing.
Judicial Watch, a conservative, non-partisan watchdog group, filed a freedom of information requests with the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) for records on the meeting. The FBI initially claimed there were no records, but after DOJ documents revealed communications on the meeting with the FBI, the FBI agreed to release the documents.
On Nov. 29, the FBI provided the 29-page report to Judicial Watch, which the watchdog group published on its website the same day.
The documents are mainly emails from after the meeting and reveal that the FBI tried covering up the secret meeting by silencing a whistleblower who had revealed it to the public.