Justice Department officials are poring over more than 10,000 text messages between two ex-FBI agents booted from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe after agents discovered the two made anti-Trump comments.
Fox News reports that the department is going through “several months” of text messages from former counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok to FBI attorney Lisa Page, whom he had an affair with.
The agency is reviewing the text messages before handing them over to the House Intelligence Committee.
The Justice Department’s inspector general discovered this summer that Strzok and Page exchanged messages bashing President Trump and supporting 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016.
When the inspector general notified Mueller’s office, the FBI removed Strzok from the Russia probe and demoted him to a position in the FBI’s human resources department.
Page also left Mueller’s team that summer, but she departed the group before the inspector general got in touch with Mueller’s office about the text messages.
The disclosure of Strzok’s political leanings raised questions from critics about the objectivity of Mueller’s investigation.
Strzok had been selected in July 2016 to oversee the Russia probe and was also one of the top investigators of the probe into Hillary Clinton’s emails and use of a private server. He interviewed Clinton and her aides about the server, which contained classified material.
The former counterintelligence agent also interviewed Michael Flynn in January about the Russia investigation.
Strzok was also responsible for creating the statement former FBI Director James Comey delivered on July 5, 2016, clearing Clinton of all criminal charges.
Several members of the House Intelligence Committee expressed interest in reviewing Strzok’s text messages and emails after the Justice Department completes their investigation. The committee also wants to find out what impact he had on the Clinton investigation and why he questioned Flynn.