People at his level do not do anything without direction from their superiors. Period.
I am in no way defending him because the text messages and apparent actions are indefensible. However, I think we only know a small slice of the whole story.
I am confident he acted on orders from above.
I am also growing confident that the FBI at the outset of the investigation was the victim of a push-pull disinformation campaign by Brennan/Clapper using CIA, State, and allied intelligence where dossier quality information was being funneled to the 7th floor of the FBI by other sources as “credible” information backed up by “other sources” of information to corroborate it. To a certain extent, I think the FBI was played hard. Again, does not excuse what happened, but the main takeaway is that there are many other people deserving of scrutiny and scorn for the mess that was created.
All the focus on FBI (as the fall guy) will prevent a full accounting of what occurred and allow more sinister actors to walk. For this reason, I hope Strzok is truthful because he has to realize that he was the disposable puppet and a useful fool. I think this is why Gowdy made the inexplicable remarks a few weeks ago after being briefed on what started the investigation - he clearly said “anyone would want the FBI to act on what they heard.” This is why they have fought Nunes so hard - they do not want to reveal what they were TOLD by others in our government because that is where the big conspiracy lives.
Bongino has done the best job of explaining this and was the first one to really connect the dots.
I agree with you....I was just being a smarta$$.... that said, your response is well-stated.