The text messages sent between FBI Agent Peter Strzok and Bureau lawyer Lisa Page are the gift that keeps on giving. Long after we expected to have seen the last of the communications between the two lovebirds, Rep. Mark Meadows revealed a new exchange of messages on Monday that show the anti-Trump officials discussing a “media leak strategy” intended to harm President Trump in early 2017. Meadows fired off a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein expressing his deep concerns about what the Bureau was doing in the first months of the Trump administration.
“Our review of these new documents raises grave concerns regarding an apparent systemic culture of media leaking by high-ranking officials at the FBI and DOJ related to ongoing investigations,” Meadows wrote.
The troubling messages date from April 10 and 12 of 2017. In the first one, Strzok – then a chief investigator on the Trump/Russia case – wrote: “I had literally just gone to find this phone to tell you I want to talk to you about media leak strategy with DOJ before you go.”
In the second message, Strzok refers to two new articles coming out about Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and congratulates his lover on (apparently) playing a role in facilitating them. “Well done, Page,” he wrote.
Meadows suggested to Rosenstein that the texts reveal “a coordinated effort on the part of the FBI and DOJ to release information in the public domain potentially harmful to President Donald Trump’s administration.”
“For example,” he continued, “the following text exchange should lead a reasonable person to question whether there was a sincere desire to investigate wrongdoing or to place derogatory information in the media to justify a continued probe.”
Of course, this theory of the case must be viewed in its proper context; for instance, we already know from previously published reports that the FBI was leaking stories to the media and then using those very stories to prove to the FISA court and other top Justice Department entities that the investigation should continue. It was a vicious circle that, indeed, ultimately led to the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Who, lo and behold, has STILL yet to come up with a single shred of evidence connecting the Trump campaign to illegal contact with Russian election meddlers.
In a tweet sent early Tuesday morning, President Trump decried the lack of interest within his Justice Department when it comes to investigating the agency’s own wrongdoing.
“So terrible,” he wrote, “and NOTHING is being done at DOJ or FBI – but the world is watching, and they get it completely.”
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