01-24-2018, 02:09 AM
(This post was last modified: 01-24-2018, 03:19 AM by Armonica_Templar.)
Peter Strzok
Note he is married
Quote:Peter Strzok
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[/url][url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Strzok#p-search]
Peter P. Strzok II[1] (born c. 1970[2]) (English pronunciation: /stɹʌk/, like "struck”[3][4]) is a United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent. Strzok was the Chief of the Counterespionage Section during the FBI's investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email server.[4][5] Strzok rose to become the Deputy Assistant Director of the Counterintelligence Division, which is the number two position in that division, and led the FBI's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.[4][6][7][8]
In June and July 2017, Strzok was the top FBI agent working on Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation into any links or coordination between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and the Russian government.[9][6][8] Mueller removed Strzok from the Russia investigation when he became aware of criticisms of Trump contained in personal text messages sent by Strzok to a colleague.[10][11] The subsequent widespread coverage of the text messages has been described as part of an aggressive campaign by Republican congressmen and conservative media to discredit Mueller's investigation. The Republican-controlled Department of Justice has defended Mueller's response to the text messages.[12][9]
Contents
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- 1Early life, education, and FBI assignments
- 2Discovery of text messages and removal from Mueller investigation
- 3References
- 4External links
Early life, education, and FBI assignments
Strzok attended high school in Minnesota.[13] He earned a bachelors degree from Georgetown University in 1991 as well as a master's degree in 2013.[14] He is married to Melissa Hodgman, an associate director at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.[15][16][17] His father was a longtime member of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.[18] Like his father, Strzok served as an officer in the United States Army before joining the FBI in the 1990's as an intelligence research specialist.[19][20]
By July 2015, Strzok was serving as the section chief of the Counterespionage Section, a subordinate section of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division.[4] He led a team of a dozen investigators to examine Hillary Clinton's emails, including reviewing emails discovered just a few days before Election Day, and helped to draft public statements about it.[21] For example, while working on a team to draft a statement for then-FBI Director James Comey, he changed the description of Clinton's actions as "grossly negligent", which could be a criminal offense, to "extremely careless".[4] The draft was reviewed and corrected by several people and its creation was a team process. In his final statement, Comey said that "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring charges based on available evidence.[4]
Due to his acknowledged expertise and reliability, Strzok rose to the position of Deputy Assistant Director of the Counterintelligence Division, and as the number two official within that division oversaw investigations involving Russia and China.[9][22][19] In that capacity, he led the FBI's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections,[4][23] and examined both the Donald Trump–Russia dossier and the Russian role in the 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak.[24][3][21] He also oversaw the bureau's interviews with then-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn; Flynn later pled guilty of lying during those interviews.[25]
In July 2017, Strzok became the top FBI agent working for Robert Mueller's 2017 Special Counsel investigation looking into any links or coordination between Trump's presidential campaign and the Russian government.[26][27] He served in that position until August 2017, at which time he began working in the Human Resources Branch.[28][29] According to The New York Times, Strzok was "considered one of the most experienced and trusted FBI counterintelligence investigators,"[20] as well as "one of the Bureau's top experts on Russia" according to CNN.[4] Strzok left the investigation in late July 2017 after the discovery of personal text messages sent to a colleague.[30] At the request of Republicans in Congress, the Justice Department (DOJ) Inspector General (IG) began an inquiry in January 2017 into how the FBI handled investigations related to the election, and the IG announced it would issue a report by March or April 2018.[20][31]
Discovery of text messages and removal from Mueller investigation
During the IG's investigation, it examined thousands of text messages exchanged using FBI-issued cell phones between Strzok and Lisa Page, a trial attorney on Mueller's team.[32][33][32][33] The texts were sent between August 15, 2015 and December 1, 2016. At the request of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the DOJ turned over 375 of these text messages to the House Judiciary Committee.[32][33][34] Some of the texts disparaged then-presidential candidate Donald Trump,[32][33][35][36] Chelsea Clinton, Attorney General in the Obama administration Eric Holder, former Democratic Governor Martin O'Malley, and Bernie Sanders, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.[37][38][39] For example, Strzok called Trump an "idiot" in August 2015 and texted "God Hillary should win 100,000,000 - 0" after a Republican debate in March 2016.[32][33][40] Allegedly, Strzok and Page had been using the backdrop of discussing the Clinton investigation as a cover for their personal communications during an affair.[41]Immediately upon learning of the text messages, Mueller removed Strzok from the investigation.[20] Messages released in January 2018 showed that Strzok was hesitant to join the Mueller investigation, with Page encouraging him not to.[42]
Strzok's colleagues and a former Trump administration official said that Strzok had never shown any political bias.[2][35] An associate of his says the political parts of the text messages were especially related to Trump's criticism of the FBI's investigation of the Clinton emails.[2] According to FBI guidelines, agents are allowed to have and express political opinions as individuals. Former FBI and DOJ officials told The Hill that it was not uncommon for agents like Strzok to hold political opinions and still conduct an impartial investigation.[43] Several agents asserted that Mueller had removed Strzok to protect the integrity of the special counsel's Russia investigation.[44] Strzok was not punished following his reassignment.[45] Defenders of Strzok and Page in the FBI said no professional misconduct between them occurred.[35]
The decision by the DOJ to publicize the private messages in December 2017 was by itself controversial. Further statements by DOJ spokeswomen revealed that some reporters had copies of the texts even before the DOJ invited the press to review them, but the DOJ did not authorize the pre-release. Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee have asked for a review of the circumstances under which the texts were leaked to select press outlets.[46]
Reactions
Strzok's personal messages to Lisa Page have been used by Republicans to attack the impartiality of Mueller's investigation into Donald Trump's alleged collusion with Russia during the election. Conservative media outlets and Republicans have used the text messages as part of an aggressive campaign to discredit the Mueller investigation and protect President Trump. Other Republicans have defended Mueller and his work, including Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein who said that he would only fire Mueller if there was actual cause under DOJ regulations, and that no such cause existed. Rosenstein also praised Mueller for removing Strzok from the Russian investigation itself.[12]
Congressional scrutiny
In an August 2016 text message, Strzok told Page: "I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's (Andrew McCabe, Deputy Director of the FBI) office that there's no way Trump gets elected—but I'm afraid we can't take that risk. It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40 ... " This message attracted scrutiny from Republicans, including Senator Chuck Grassley, chairman of the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, who stated: "Some of these texts appear to go beyond merely expressing a private political opinion, and appear to cross the line into taking some official action to create an 'insurance policy' against a Trump presidency." However, sources close to Strzok and Page told The Wall Street Journal that Strzok was not contemplating using the FBI's investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia to harm Trump's candidacy, but rather emphasizing the need to aggressively pursue any such leads before the election "because some of Mr. Trump's associates could land administration jobs and it was important to know if they had colluded with Russia."[47]
On January 20, 2018, Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) released a letter in which he stated that the FBI had failed to preserve five months' worth of texts between Strzok and Page. According to the letter, the texts in question were sent between mid-December 2016 and mid-May 2017.[48]
Fox News coverage
While referring to Strzok's messages, the Fox News Channel intensified its anti-Mueller rhetoric, and its political commentator Jesse Watters said that Mueller’s investigation now amounted to a coup against President Trump, if "the investigation was weaponized to destroy his presidency for partisan political purposes".[49][50][51][52][53] One guest on Fox's talk and news show Outnumbered, Kevin Jackson, speculated that Strzok's messages were evidence of a plot by FBI agents to make "an assassination attempt or whatever" against President Trump, which other Fox hosts quickly contradicted and said was not "credible".[54] Fox News figures referred to the investigation as "corrupt", "crooked" and "illegitimate", and likened the FBI to the KGB, the brutal Soviet-era spy organization.[49] Political scientists and experts on coups rejected that Mueller's investigation amounted to a coup; rather, said Brian Klaas of the London School of Economics, the Fox News rhetoric was dangerous to democracy and mirrored the kind of rhetoric that occurs before “purges”.[49]
Note he is married