Posted on 01/21/2018 11:49:50 AM PST by billorites
The FBI “failed to preserve” five months worth of text messages exchanged between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, the two FBI employees who made pro-Clinton and anti-Trump comments while working on the Clinton email and the Russia collusion investigations.
The disclosure was made Friday in a letter sent by the Justice Department to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC).
“The Department wants to bring to your attention that the FBI’s technical system for retaining text messages sent and received on FBI mobile devices failed to preserve text messages for Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page,” Stephen Boyd, the assistant attorney general for legislative affairs at the Justice Department, wrote to Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, the chairman of HSGAC. (RELATED: FBI Agents Discussed ‘Insurance Policy’ Against Trump Win)
He said that texts are missing for the period between Dec. 14, 2016 and May 17, 2017.
Boyd attributed the failure to “misconfiguration issues related to rollouts, provisioning, and software upgrades that conflicted with the FBI’s collection capabilities.”
“The result was that data that should have been automatically collected and retained for long-term storage and retrieval was not collected,” Boyd wrote.
Strzok and Page were significant players in the Clinton and Trump investigations. As deputy chief of counterintelligence, Strzok oversaw the Trump investigation when it was opened in July 2016. Weeks earlier, he had wrapped up his work as one of the top investigators on the Clinton email probe.
Both worked on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation until July 2017.
But Strzok was removed after the Justice Department’s inspector general discovered text messages he exchanged with Page, with whom he was having an affair, in which both expressed strong criticism of Trump.
In one text, Strzok called Trump and “idiot.” In another, he said “F Trump.”
In another more cryptic exchange, Strzok spoke of an “insurance policy” that the FBI sought to take out in case Trump defeated Clinton in the election.
“I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office — that there’s no way [Trump] gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk,” Strzok wrote to Page on Aug. 15, 2016.
“Andy” was a reference to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
“It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40,” Strzok added. Republicans have questioned what Strzok meant by “insurance policy.”
Page left the Mueller team prior to the discovery of the texts.
Johnson expressed concern over the missing text messages, which were sent during a key period of the Russia investigation. During that time frame is when the Steele dossier was published by BuzzFeed News, when Strzok participated in a Jan. 24 interview with then-national security adviser Michael Flynn, and when James Comey was fired as FBI director.
The end date of the missing Strzok-Page texts is also significant. That’s because May 17 is the day when Mueller was appointed to take over the FBI’s probe of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government.
“The loss of records from this period is concerning,” Johnson wrote in a letter sent Saturday to FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Along with its disclosure of the missing text messages, DOJ’s Boyd handed over 384 additional text messages exchanged between Strzok and Page.
Just an average day in the Obama Police State---
Worshipful "Susan the Sifter" gets her orders for the day.
"Susan, as you sift through the intel, get me something
damaging on Penguin books so I can shake them down for
a lucrative book deal."
"And get Harvey Weinstein's tax returns. Malia needs a job."
"Oh, and Lois over at IRS needs intel to target conservatives' tax-exempt status.
And don't forget the FBI files on Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer."
Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) told FOX News today the FISA Memo is the “Smoking Gun.”
Start locking up the IT guys. This problem will go away.
It’s rather impossible to believe that Page and Strozk are still still still not in jail.
Yep. The credibility and reputation of the FBI has hit rock bottom.
I can't think of an IT geek, going back to eighth grade, who didn't deserve shackles.
They're all evil. With unfortunate skin.
37 years in the IT biz and all I've got to say to that is...hmm...kinky...
I really feel bad for President Nixon. What he did is nothing compared to what we have seen from BOTH Clintons, the Kenyan usurper and the fake federal government in general.
Obama FBI, State Department, etc. have a real frakin’ hard time maintaining records, like wtf?!
Trump, among others he has appointed to these departments, needs to be doing a lot of cleaning house, firings, and persecuting mofos, me’thinks
....How long does your mobile phone provider store data for law enforcement access?...
Longer than the deep state wants us to know. They should be lined against the get wall and asked if they want a blindfold or not.
The deep state is not what the Founding Fathers had in mind. If not just removed from power, they would be hung back then.
Obstruction of Justice.
Hmmmm
Blatant coverup. Just like all the IRS emails that disappeared after IRSgate.
Perhaps 75 million Trump supporters fail to file income taxes?? Where will they put us?
Their pensions must removed -— after they are in chains.
It also says MI5 when Christopher Steele was MI6. Not sure what the difference is but it’s a discrepancy.
Yes, it is not believable. If they put in place a new system, and in a week or two of testing or roll-out it was found to be missing captures, that would be understandable. But it went on for 5 months, and they didn’t know it was missing doing its backup job all that time? Nope. You are too incompetent to hold your jobs if your story is true.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.