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.
How long does your mobile phone provider store data for law enforcement access?
By Darlene Storm, Computerworld | SEP 28, 2011
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has been trying to obtain the when, why and how law enforcement uses cell phone location data to track Americans. Today the ACLU posted the 2010 cell photo data retention chart received from the Justice Department via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
“Retention Periods of Major Cellular Providers” was meant “to advise law enforcement agents seeking to obtain cell phone records.” Mobile phone providers store data ranging from text messages, to pictures, IP addresses, browsing history, cell towers used and call logs.
For example in location tracking, since July 2008, AT&T indefinitely keeps data about which cell towers were used by your phone. Verizon stores your cell-site data for “1 rolling year.” Sprint and Nextel keep it for 18 - 24 months. Virgin Mobile’s is ‘not retained’ but can be obtained through Sprint.
If law enforcement is so inclined as to find out, then the “details” of your text messages are conveniently kept by AT&T for “post paid 5 - 7 years;” it does not retain the text message content. Verizon holds onto your text message detail for “1 rolling year” and your actual text content for “3 - 5 days.” In case you were wondering, the “details” are like text “call” history which generally includes the date, time, sender’s phone number and receiver’s phone number. T-Mobile does not retain the message content, but hangs onto your text details for “pre-paid: 2 years; post-paid: 5 years.” Sprint and Nextel hold text detail for “18 months” depending upon the device. Virgin Mobile which is owned by Sprint keeps text detail for “60 - 90 days” and the text message content for “90 days {search warrant required with “text of text” request}.” Wow, at least one had the decency to mention a warrant is required.
They didn’t know this until this weekend of the shoot frown? Congress requested this information months ago.
So unsurprising. Well, fire anyone involved, whether by action or inaction, in failing to save or retain these messages.
Wait, over 10,000 text messages even after deleting five critical months of them?! Wow.
Shut down. Stupid Autocorrect.
That’s a pile of bovine fecal material!
I worked for one of the top 10 defense contractors between 1985-1995. Early on in the computer days a few people tried the old “the dog ate my homework” excuse (i.e. -sorry my project is late, the file somehow got deleted/lost/corrupted). It became a firing offense, it didn’t matter how senior you were or who you knew. You are responsible to backup your data period - no excuses.
So I call bull$hit on this... you lose files you are FIRED.
Face it. Sessions died or had his EEG go flatline months ago. It's been a "Dave" act since then. Why? Who knows?
The dawg ate their homework
Frankly, I dont believe it for a nanosecod.
Or, by farce: it becomes such a laughingstock that nobody believes them.
The mealy-mouthed explanation, as if only passive, technological glitches occurred by themselves, rings of falsehood. In a justice-based Justice Department, there would be a full-court press to investigate who is responsible for these “glitches”, exactly how, when and why they occurred. I don’t buy an accidental loss of data AT ALL. Especially when you consider that the exact time frame covered is at the heart of the time period when a conspiracy was apparently being executed to overturn the results of an election.
Do you really think Trump is stupid? He knows all and knew all this at the time. in fact he knew it before ;) It was all done under the watchful eye of the IG and there are also backups, partial backups and no such agency copies. The period is from transition through firing of Comey whereupon Comey’s office was taken down by a special team including Trump’s longtime security guy to make sure everything remains kosher. The question remains, is Mueller in on the sting or it’s first exhibit ... TBD
Obstruction of justice charges are only for the peasants. There are bunch of people who need to be thrown in the pokey for this type of activities.
You can’t get away with this in a private industry company under federal investigation. Someone goes to jail for obstruction of justice.
This was in the comments section to this article:
They shot Cable Boy! They shot Jerry!
Can’t they be forensically retrieved?
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