It was revealed this weekend that the FBI recently told the Justice Department it was unable to find text messages exchanged between FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page.
The Strzok-Page text message scandal has been a major concern to Republicans for weeks now, as the pair’s anti-Trump text messages between Strzok and Page may support allegations of political bias within the FBI.
Strzok played a role in both the Clinton investigation and the Russia probe, although he was later removed by Robert Mueller after the text messages were revealed. The Justice Department initially provided Washington investigators and lawmakers with nearly 400 text messages in December, and recently provided thousands more.
However, the Justice Department has also stated that texts sent between Strzok and Page from December 14, 2016, to May 17, 2017 could mysteriously not be found. The department blamed this discrepancy on a technical issue.
Justice Department officials wrote, in a letter to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, that the FBI was upgrading its phones to Samsung 7’s at the time, and that this was the reason for the months of missing text messages. The phones, according to the Justice Department, “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”.
The suspicious failure to preserve these text messages has prompted further allegations of a deep state coverup by the FBI—particularly since the missing messages were exchanged during the period from the Trump transition up to the appointment of Mueller. Given the circumstances, many Republicans have been critical of this being a mere coincidence.
President Trump later took to Twitter to address the situation, warning Americans that the missing texts were “one of the biggest stories in a long time” and should not be glossed over by the mainstream media. In one Tweet, he proclaimed, “The FBI now says it is missing five months worth of lovers Strzok-Page texts, perhaps 50,000, and all in prime time. Wow!”
Even more concerning, many GOP officials are beginning to realize the severity of the situation and the political bias it could very well prove. Many are comparing it to the Lois Lerner investigation, in which an IRS official’s emails disappeared during congressional investigations of her targeting conservative nonprofit groups.
Republican Ohio Rep. and member of the House Judiciary and House Oversight Committees Jim Jordan, who served as a member of the Oversight panel during the Lerner investigation, has drawn parallels to the infamous IRS email scandal.
According to Jordan, the Strzok-Page text message scandal may even be a bigger exposure of the deep state than the Lerner investigation, saying “Everybody knows the IRS is incompetent. But we’re talking about the FBI here. […] If this is true, they lost the text messages from the guy who was deputy head of counterintelligence? I mean, come on. If this actually happened this is unbelievable, and it’s why we would need to investigate it.”
Many suspect that Strzok and Page further discussed their political views in the missing text messages. In the sample messages released by the Justice Department in December, the pair expressed their opinions of Trump and Clinton, with Strzok referring to Trump as “idiot” in several messages and cryptically referencing an “insurance policy” that investigators would need to take out in Trump won. In a May 2016 conversation, texts between the two show Strzok suggesting the FBI would need to move quickly in its Clinton investigation after Sen. Ted Cruz withdrew from the Republican primaries, solidifying Trump’s position as the GOP nominee.
It remains unknown whether Strzok and Page deleted any of their text messages or if the Bureau maintains possession of their work phones. It is also unclear how many other FBI officials – if any—had also lost text messages due to the supposed technical misconfiguration. The FBI declined to answer these questions.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R- South Carolina) and Rep. John Ratcliffe (R- Texas) said Monday that the messages exchanged between Strzok and Page are evidence of a “secret society” within the FBI and Justice Department.
In a Tuesday interview with Fox News, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders spoke about the texts, calling the FBI’s failure to preserve the messages “absolutely outrageous”.
Sanders, pointing out that the two agents had shared numerous conversations in which they ridiculed Trump and showed obvious preference for Clinton, expressed great concern over the missing text messages. “It’s quite convenient for them,” she said, “And quite inconvenient for the president to have this type of problem within our top law enforcement agency.”
Now that the memo has been released and no names were redacted, I sincerely hope this is the first huge step in the draining of the swamp as I’m sure it will incriminate a whole lot of people. I think the FBI lost their credibility and respect with the American people with their shameful and less than professional behavior, and the DOJ as well. They are the people we should be “looking up to” as they hold the highest offices in Washington, and yes, people will make mistakes, but not as blatantly (or secretly) as these two departments did, just to keep then -candidate Donald Trump from becoming the next president. Since when did they become political when their main job is to seek the truth? It’s going to take a long time and lot of soul-searching for both departments to regain their reputation and credibility so they can hold their heads up high once again, if many of them will still be on the job and not arrested, instead. The American people have the right to know exactly what has been going on and I think the Democrats and their party have given themselves an even bigger “black eye” that won’t be going away anytime soon. They deserve what is coming to them finally! I think this is a huge embarrassment to the rest of the world. President Trump was brought in at the right time to start “righting the sinking ship before it sank completely” and to make this country great again, and he is doing a great job, no thanks to the Democrats or anyone who didn’t want him to win!! I hope Congress will pursue this huge problem with a vengeance and not stop until every guilty person is roped in.
This shows there is a deep state within the FBI protecting their would be puppet enablers. It probably runs all the way to the NWO deep-deep state.
Are not these ABC departments committing Treason and Sedition! They are “UNCONSTITUTIONAL” branches of Govt.! Purge or Abolish them!
Not to worry. Horowitz, Inspector General for the DOJ, was able to “forensically” recover deleted text messages from that interval of time, after confiscating at least four (4) cell phones from the two FBI lovebirds. Stay tuned.
Wonder if the same guy who set up Hillary’s server was hired to convert the FBI to new phones?
The deep state bureaucracy, Hillary Clinton, DNC, and the FBI have lost emails, memos, and records. Does anybody detect a pattern? How much more is being hidden and lied about? Where is the DOJ? There has to be special prosecutors appointed to investigate the Clintons, the DNC, and Comey. This is the starting point. Many people have to go to prison. The guilty people and not the “framed” people.
Until conservatives take back the media, holding all these criminals responsible for their actions, this won’t be the end of “lost” documents and further illegal actions by the deep state! Democrats are enjoying all this, very much!
Once it might happen but this many times there is a case for OBSTRUCTION of Justice that NEEDS to be investigated by an outside source to find the TRUTH. In the interim those people under investigation should be suspended and ALL their Government notes, phones, and computers should be seized and held as evidence. Those people whose job it was to secure that information should be investigated and the appropriate action taken, suspension, termination, or criminal charges filed !!
Is it legal to appoint a Special Counsel to investigate a Special Counsel? I’m just sayin’… Sounds like they’ll need to subcontract this one to the KGB.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
I would like to see all 800,000 DACA persons (illegal) to take a test about American politics, just like the folks legally seeking citizenship are tested. They cannot know when the test will be given. If they fail, it’s off to Mexico. If they pass, they can move to the Indian Reservations with the Native Americans and call it good. Think about it….something along those lines, We must figure out something—no emotions or shut-down of govt. I know this is off topic, but I want us to think together, not emote
“Growing indication”? Duh…if you’re getting your news from CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, WaPo, NYT etc. this may be NEWs. The FBI and Obama DOJ have shown blatant bias for over a year. Actually, a lot longer than that. People need to avoid listening to these liars and hypocrites. “Fake News” is more than a right wing hashtag. It’s sad reality.
When are conservatives going to wake up and put their time and money into wresting the media away from the liberals. Until that happens, things are only going to get worse… a LOT worse!
Paul W, you are right. If one really wants the real news, they should tune in to OAN…One America News….as they report nothing but the truth without any personal comments of their own. I have AT&T Uverse and they have OAN but I understand DISH does not, and people are now asking DISH to start carrying OAN too. OAN is on 24/7 so no matter what time you tune in, you’ll get the news. They also report news from around the world so the viewer gets to know what is happening outside of the US as well.
Just for fun, I did some quick math: 50,000 text messages! Lets say they were “short” 30 seconds each. Multiply by 30 gives you 1.5 mil seconds. Divide by 60 for minutes, divide by 60 for hours, divide by 40 for a work week gives you 10.42 works weeks! So, over a period of 5 months, these two spent 2 1/2 months sending text messages! Is it any wonder our country is going broke. We have federal employees spending HALF their work time sending text messages to each other about how THEY are going to save the American People from themselves because WE are too stupid to recognize how dangerous Trump is and how wonderful Hillary is.
Even putting all the “collusion” and skull doggery aside, these two should be fired for dereliction of duty!
Oven fired or firing squad?
“Duty”? What duty??? We don’t need no stinkin’ duty….
Fake News, Fake DOJ, Fake FBI, Fake Schumer Shut Down, Fake Dossier, Fake Mueller Imvestigation
Who can the American citizen trust
The only thing that seems real is Dem duplicity, the elevated status of the UnDocumented and the art of the Mueller perjury trap.
The Democratic Party — biggest RICO of them all.
In as many years as I’ve been emailing and texting, I have lost ZERO messages except those I messed up by my own fingers. I immediately found the problem on examination. It looks like I am smarter than the whole FBI since they can’t find 5 months worth of emails from two extremely active account of their top level agents. Nobody noticed? BS in spades. It is time for a wholesale clean-out of the top level of the Agency starting with Mr. Wray, and Sessions himself if he puts up any resistance. We already wonder where Sessions mind and heart are since he unnecessarily recused himself from the Russia witch hunt and appointed his deputy who WAS involved in the dark side of the anti-Trump treason. A top level clean-out will be the only way to re-establish the credentials and integrity of the formerly esteemed FBI.
Congressman Trey Gowdy for the next FBI Director.
We need to stop relying on pulling people from the Senate to fill important posts. One, that would throw our slender majority control of the Senate out the window, as it would force another special election. Two, there are many highly qualified people outside of Washington that could fill the post and stick to the rule of law.
If 50,000 text messages are lost how do they there is 50,000 if they are lost?
Great point!
All wireless carriers record the time, date, and cell phone identities of incoming/outgoing text messages for their customers. But not all carriers save the actual content of the text messages. For example Verizon DOES save text messages either sent or received by it’s customers, at least for a certain period of time, but A&T does not. Once an AT&T text message is deleted by a sender and receiver, both on its network, that message is GONE.
Hillary Clinton when asked if she had wiped the files to avoid providing evidence of her wrong-doing; “What, like with a cloth or something? … I don’t know how it works digitally at all.”
Hillary knows how many things work
Like a Houdini knowing the system escaping responsibilities for scandalous actions and intent
“Technical misconfiguration”?? Can’t the FBI do any better than that? Truly comical.
The insurance policy that Strzok referred to is simply a euphemism for the COLLUSION that he, Page, and the secret society of the FBI and the DOJ will attempt to mete out in their attempt to impeach the president. D.C. is less swamp than putrid cesspool.
Kim great response, except for the term used to weaken “Conspiracy” — COLLUSION —
Hi Rev. R.S.–
To me, they are equally naughty, but predictable. How unfortunate for America.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that conspiracy is an indictable offense. You’re right; conspiracy is the stronger word, especially in legal terms.
Just an FYI. Collusion, in and of itself, is not a crime. The actions resulting from said collusion, which usually entail one or more various criminal activities to carry out the plan for personal or group gain, are where criminal charges are typically applicable. Conspiracy, as it relates to planning or executing some criminal act, is an actual criminal act that one can be charged with seperately as a standalone criminal offense.
HI Kim,
Please see my response to Lee S under my initial post. You seem to be one of the few people who realizes the severity of this latest attempted cover-up by the administrative state out to get Trump at any cost.
Hi PaulE-
How much do you want to bet that every MSM broadcast or article mentions the “impeachable Mr. Trump” until after the 2020 elections? As when ducklings are imprinted and follow from birth the first live being they see, the liberals are counting on this form of “mind control” (propaganda) to carry them into the White House.
Gowdy, Jordan, and others MUST NOT LET THIS CASE REST!
I agree the MSM will use the same sound bites about Trump about to be impeached non-stop between now and 2020. Just part of firing up the Democrat base to vote fir whomever is their nominee. The MSM will all use the same words and phrases, as they do now. Which simply shows the MSM is being directed and is acting in a coordinated fashion to remove Trump from office. I currently count 16 Democrats that will be vying for the 2020 Democrat nomination. No doubt a few more will be added to the list in the next few months, as they all start building their campaign infrastructure.
Yes, I expect the indoctrinated useful idiots will lap up whatever the MSM spoon feeds them. They already do. Our progressively run public education system has been an unqualified success in creating a growing population of sheep more than willing to be led to their own demise.
The only members of Congress I have any faith in are the House Freedom Caucus. Everyone else on the Republican side seems to be content to let this endless smear job continue for as long as the Dems want to drag this out. Watching most Republicans say endlessly that “We just have to let this all play out” even as more corruption and what is essentially treason being disclosed on a daily basis tells me most of them either are total morons or they secretly want Trump gone too and a return to the status quo..
OK, that’s enough of “we got proof, we promise, but we can not show it to yet” Quit the BS reporting and put it out there. Let everyone see the proof and then we can make our own decision on what’s going on
The citizens of the United States have a right to know, and to be able to read an unredacted copy of the Memo, and emails.
Easy there, Pardner. Wouldn’t want to get the former POTUS in hot water now would we.
Another case of “Oops we lost those tests / e-mails you were looking for us to get you” from yet another federal agency. Same play being repeated as the IRS messages related to Lois Lerner, except now it is the FBI playing the game with Congress. Same solution as then. One the texts / e-mails are NOT lost. While the FBI may have intentionally deleted those e-mails from their internal servers, copies of virtually all texts and e-mails exist from the following sources:
1) The federally mandated backups of all electronic communication devices that are stored off site. Based on the preservation of data standards, there are at least 4 copies of backups of all those texts / e-mails from the dates Congress is looking for.
2) The major communications provider (Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, whomever else) also have backups of all this data. Law enforcement routinely gets such data related to subjects under investigation from these providers.
3) The NSA has multiple copies of all this data. The NSA intercepts virtually every form of electronic communications in this country by sitting on the backbones of every communications provider in this country. All supposedly done on behalf of national security, but that is another topic of discussion for another day.
Bottom line: NO DATA that Congress is looking for is lost. It is just a question of whether the members of Congress on these committees are going to subpoena any of the sources I have identified above or are they going to repeat their idiotic performance from the IRS / Lois Lerner scandal and simply hold a series of photo ops to complain they can’t go further until the FBI leadership, which has no interest in providing these texts or e-mails, decides to “magically” locate the missing information. The next few days will spell out for the American people which way Congress will go.
Now AMAC can bury this story.
It’s out there! Quit the BS and show us.
Sure sounds like a lot of incompetence in the government agencies involved – reason alone for firing people. I do get your point about copies but these people can be fired for incompetence and negligence in their positions without any politics involved – and they should be!
Not incompetence, but willful criminal actions to both try and eliminate federal records (those texts and any e-mails are the property of the federal government since they were created on devices issued to the individuals specified by the federal government in order to conduct official business related to their jobs ) and then attempting to cover up the illegal activity through misrepresenting what happened to that information. Both are federal crimes punishable by time in federal prison.
Lee S, in public-sector unions and GS employee ratings, it is almost impossible for anyone, even in criminal instances, to be fired. Department chiefs may be more easily replaced, but rank and file are well protected from faults, intentional or otherwise. And none of this has been through incometence. It has been intentional all along. They hate the Pres and want him gone.
You might want to run an Internet search on Ayo Kimathi, a former Homeland Security employee (not a supervisor or department head). In his case, his actions were so egregious, he was eventually removed from his position.
https://www.rt.com/usa/homeland-security-ayo-kimathi-151/
You might want to run an Internet search on Ayo Kimathi, a former Homeland Security employee (not a supervisor or department head). In his case, his actions were so egregious, he was eventually removed from his position.
h_t_t_p_s://www.rt.com/usa/homeland-security-ayo-kimathi-151/
(remove all the “_”)
I want to hear how Chuck Schlemiel and Bella Logossi Pelosi defend the “missing” emails. Should be entertaining garbage!
Why waste time listening to yet more lies or intentional distortions of facts coming out of either of their mouths? Neither has anything useful to contribute on virtually any issue. We have to stop treating this administrative state corruption as a game we can afford to allow to endlessly continue. Otherwise we will end up at a point where the administrative state will decide “The h*ll with the American people and who they vote for. We run this nation and we are going to decide how things are done.”, because neither the American people nor Congress are taking any of this stuff seriously or doing anything to actually stop it.
PaulE, it may be too late already. The disdain and confidence that they can continue to hood-wink the people is quite obvious. Hillary’s “shredded” e-mails is a case in point, and with so many “cloud storage” sites owned or covered by government oversight, it is infantile to believe these documents are actually gone and not recoverable.
Having worked in a major contributing organization to “The Puzzle Palace,” nothing could convince that anything could fail to be recoverable, depending solely upon who is in charge. It seems as though the Swamp has the majority control so far.
P on M, Rik.
You’ve got that right, PaulE. Write on.
Even though they have said the messages have been found (yesterday), that does not mean that the shenanagans have ended. The swamp tends to protect its own.
We’ll see where this leads, if anywhere.