Posted on 02/08/2018 3:36:48 PM PST by mojito
Yesterday, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, released a majority staff report titled “The Clinton Email Scandal And The FBI’s Investigation Of It,” along with over 500 pages of text messages between agent Peter Strzok, formerly the Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division, and FBI attorney Lisa Page. Many of the text messages have not been released previously.
One aspect of the newly released texts that has not received any media attention is the overwhelming number of texts that deal with Page and Strzok's comments on and numerous contacts with members of the Mueller investigation in its earliest days. It appears that the office of the Special Counsel, which was established when Rod Rosenstein appointed Mueller on May 17, 2017, either had its offices in a designated section inside the FBI headquarters building in Washington DC, or in very close proximity. This afforded numerous and frequent contacts between Mueller and his staff, many of them former FBI officials, and then current FBI officials, who might be presumed to be fact witnesses of the Special Counsel's investigation. How this is not prejudicial to the investigation is beyond me.
Strzok's and Pages' texts in this regard commence on May 18, 2017 (p. 457 of the released texts document). Many, if not most of the texts between them concern whether to join the Mueller investigation or remain at the FBI. The texts relate their daily interactions with Mueller team members and FBI counterparts where they appear to be in a near continuous fret regarding their career status and ambitions. Page, it appears, does join the Mueller team but worries that she is not in the top rank of attorneys, while Strzok hesitates, Hamlet-like, between joining the Mueller investigation and remaining with the bureau.
Their interactions are oftentimes comic in their mutual near-obsessive careerist absurdity. At other times, their remarks take on a more sinister quality:
5/24/2017 (p. 464)
PAGE: So if you really do want to join the team, don't let my participation stop you. Truly.
STRZOK: Make sure you're weighting all your considerations honestly and appropriately. You said tonight you want to stay and protect the FBI. ls that true, or is it really stay and protect Andy? What if it's Director Townsend? Staying for Andy is perfectly fine. Just be brutally honest with yourself.
l don't know what l want, Lisa. l don't want to be anything but the lead agent. And l think even that is going to be a far cry from the inner sanctum of what Bob decides. I don't think agents will play a significant role. I (or whoever) might work into that circle of trust, but he's not going to view the lead agent the same as aaron (sic)
PAGE: No, but Aaron might, which would be as good as Bob doing it.
[End.]
(For reference the “team” is the Mueller investigation, “Andy” is Andrew McCabe, and “Townsend” is Frances Townsend, former Director of Homeland Security under George W. Bush. “Bob” is Robert Mueller and “Aaron” is Aaron Zebley, former FBI Chief of Staff to Mueller and partner with Mueller at the WilmerHale law firm, where Zebley represented Clinton IT staffer Justin Cooper who installed her illegal server when she was Secretary of State.)
The context here seems to imply that Page and Strzok are aware that the FBI and McCabe might need “protection” because of the handling of the Clinton server investigation.
Then there’s this exchange:
6/4/2017 (pp. 474-475)
PAGE: Please, when you get a chance, plug with Aaron all the behind the scenes work I did with Andy, Jim, etc. to get this result. Andy was NOT going to do it just based on Mueller's convo with him - he just didn't understand what the problem was. AND I did a lot of work to help them understand that [redacted] was not the right guy.
STRZOK: Thank you.
Of course l will.
PAGE: I worry they think l'm too loyal to Andy or Comey, won't truly trust me because of that. Maybe this will help.
?
I dunno.
STRZOK: I wouldn't worry about that
Just be you
That will be enough
PAGE: It hasn't been yet.
STRZOK: This is true. And l don't think it's that they don't trust you because of Andy or Comey. I think they just don't trust, generally. You will work your way in. Patience.
And sigh. Ok. Don't worry too much about Mueller and Aaron. You're gong (sic) to be ok. :)
[End.]
So just what is the “behind the scenes work” that Page has been doing, just coincidentally related to a “problem” that McCabe didn’t “understand”?
There’s a lot more here, and it bears investigating. I want to encourage other FReepers to take a look at this and post anything of interest they might find.
Good hunting, my FRiends.
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