Hillary knew.
Quote:Questions grow over FBI's missing Strzok-Page text messages.SOURCE:
'Lawmakers are pressing for answers after revelations that the FBI “failed to preserve” five months of
texts between two bureau officials under fire for exchanging anti-Trump messages during the 2016 election.
The missing messages from Peter Strzok and Lisa Page span a crucial window, between the presidential
transition and the launch of Robert Mueller’s Russia probe -- where both officials previously were assigned.
"We need to get to the bottom of it and find out what exactly happened," Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said
Monday on Fox News' "Outnumbered Overtime."
Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.
The Justice Department acknowledged the lapse in records in turning over 384 pages of new text messages
between Strzok and Page, who were romantically involved, to congressional committees.
The DOJ blamed a technical glitch for the gap.
“The Department wants to bring to your attention that the FBI’s technical system for retaining text messages
sent and received on FBI mobile devices failed to preserve text messages for Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page from
December 14, 2016 to approximately May 17, 2017,” Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs Stephen
Boyd wrote to Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis.
“The FBI has informed [the Department of Justice] that many FBI-provided Samsung 5 mobile devices did not
capture or store text messages due to misconfiguration issues related to rollouts, provisioning, and software
upgrades that conflicted with the FBI’s collection capabilities.”
When asked Monday whether the FBI “failed to preserve” text message records on similar “Samsung 5” devices
belonging to any other FBI officials during that time period, the FBI told Fox News they had “no comment.”
A Justice Department spokesperson told Fox News that the Department’s Office of Inspector General also doe
not have any text messages between the two during that time period.
An OIG spokesperson declined to comment.
“The claim that five months of critical evidence went missing due to a technical glitch is really hard to take at face
value,” a source from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence told Fox News on Monday, leaving
the door open for that committee to also launch a formal inquiry with the FBI.
During the window of missing text messages, a lot happened.
President Trump took the oath of office; National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, whom Strzok interviewed, was fired;
the controversial anti-Trump dossier was published; the president fired FBI Director James Comey; and special
counsel Mueller was appointed to investigate Russian meddling and potential collusion with Trump campaign associates
during the 2016 presidential election.
“The loss of records from this period is concerning because it is apparent from other records that Mr. Strzok and
Ms. Page communicated frequently about the investigation,” Johnson wrote in a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray
over the weekend, requesting more information and questioning whether the FBI had done a thorough search on non-FBI
devices belonging to Strzok and Page during that period.
A source on one committee in receipt of the new text messages told Fox News it was “outrageous” that the FBI had not
previously indicated the five-month gap in messages existed. The source said it was incumbent on the FBI to prove
that the missing texts do not constitute “obstruction” of congressional oversight or “destruction of evidence.”
Last month, the Justice Department released hundreds of text messages that Strzok and Page had traded.
Both served for a short period of time on Mueller’s team, with Page leaving over the summer and Strzok being reassigned
late last year to the FBI’s human resources division after the discovery of the exchanges with Page.
Many of the texts revealed a clear anti-Trump and pro-Clinton bias, and included discussions of the Clinton email investigation.
Rep. Jordan said Monday that the lapse in documents is reminiscent of the mysterious disappearance of emails from
former IRS official Lois Lerner during the Obama-era IRS/Tea Party targeting scandal.
Lerner’s emails disappeared during congressional investigations.
“The Lerner thing was huge,” Jordan told The Daily Caller. “My gut tells me this is probably bigger.”
And Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., said the need for a second special counsel was “abundantly clear now.”
“Unreal. We’ve been asking for the remaining text messages between anti-Trump FBI agents (and former Mueller team members),
Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. The FBI now says the texts are ‘missing,’” Meadows tweeted on Sunday.
“If it wasn’t already clear we need a second special counsel, it’s abundantly clear now.”...'
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