Peter Strzok Refuses to Hand Over Texts to Congress

Peter Strzok (Evan Vucci / Associated Press)
Evan Vucci / Associated Press

FBI agent Peter Strzok refused Thursday to hand over his text messages to Congress for further investigation, telling the U.S. House of Representatives that the Inspector General had already reviewed the relevant texts and found “no acts of bias.”

Strzok had been the lead agent in both the investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails, and of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. He was part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team until he was removed due to the appearance of political bias, thanks to the emergence of anti-Trump text messages he had exchanged with his mistress.

House Judiciary Committee chair Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-LA) pointed out that Congress had independent authority to investigate, and asked Strzok directly: “Will you authorize release of them [the texts] to the United States Congress?” Strzok said: “No, sir.”

Earlier, Stzrok told Goodlatte that the Inspector General had allowed him and his legal counsel to review his text messages with former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, and to determine which were work-related. The texts included many statements hostile to Donald Trump and his supporters, and referred to stopping Trump from being elected and impeaching him after he had taken office.

Strzok’s description of the Inspector General’s report is not accurate. While the report did conclude that political bias had not affected the FBI’s actions as a whole with regard to the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails, the Inspector General noted that he had not been able to rule out the role of political bias in Strzok’s own decision to prioritize the Russia inquiry (emphasis added):


In addition, the Inspector General’s report only concerned the Clinton investigation; a future report will address the Russia inquiry.

Former House Oversight Committee chair Darrell Issa (R-CA) noted that the Inspector General “did not see what he is claiming to be his personal texts, that they were requested and he delivered what he said was business-related. So if I understand correctly, no one has seen anything that Mr. Strzok determined would not be delivered, because in his opinion they were not business-related.”
