Peter Strzok Loses Security Clearance as Conspiracy To Harm Trump Unravels
You know, I almost feel bad for Peter Strzok. Almost.
One year ago, Strzok was flying high. He’d been in charge of the Hillary Clinton email investigation and had been selected to be one of the biggest names on Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation. Then came news that he was being taken off of the investigation and switched to the FBI’s HR department — quite the demotion.
What, pray tell, could have precipitated Strzok’s fall from a G-man hot on the tail of President Donald Trump to the guy who screens workplace safety DVDs for new FBI employees? (In my mind, this is what he’s been doing; don’t spoil my dream here.) Well, as it turns out, Strzok had been texting a lot with a very special lady who wasn’t his wife about just how awful Trump was and how they wished Hillary would win the election. Whoops.
You would think things couldn’t get any worse for Strzok, but they did. First came the inspector general’s report last week, which contained a newly-discovered text message in which he said “we’ll stop” Trump from becoming president. That led to a brand new firestorm — and, apparently, even more deleterious career information for Mr. Strzok.
According to The Daily Caller, Attorney General Jeff Sessions says that Strzok has lost his security clearance with the FBI after the latest revelations regarding his behavior.
Sessions made the remarks Thursday during an interview with Boston radio icon Howie Carr, in which he revealed the decision was made after an internal disciplinary review.
“Mr. Strzok, as I understand, has lost his security clearance,” Sessions told Carr.
The announcement came almost a week after Strzok was seen being escorted out of the FBI’s headquarters one day after Thursday’s bombshell inspector general’s report, which showed scads of bias in the FBI’s handling of the investigations surrounding the 2016 election and yet was reported as a vindication of the FBI and its methods.
Apparently, it was such a vindication that one of its chief subjects had to be more or less forcibly removed from the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington — that’s how little bias the report found.
“(Strzok’s) lawyer, Aitan Goelman, said in a statement that Strzok was ‘being put through a highly questionable process’ and that the public should be concerned about how politics had ‘been allowed to undermine due process and the legal protections owed to someone who has served his country for so long,'” The Washington Post reported.
“Pete has steadfastly played by the rules and respected the process, and yet he continues to be the target of unfounded personal attacks, political games and inappropriate information leaks,” Goelman said. “All of this seriously calls into question the impartiality of the disciplinary process, which now appears tainted by political influence.”
Oh, totally. How can an investigation be so impartial as to find something wrong with a top FBI investigator saying that “we’ll stop” one of the two presidential candidates? How can they possibly think that it’s biased when that investigator has exchanged a veritable avalanche of anti-Trump, pro-Hillary text messages with an FBI lawyer he’s become very, very close with? It’s not Strzok that’s impartial — it’s those duplicitous Republicans.
Those involved with the investigation weren’t exactly buying it. Inspector General Michael Horowitz called Strzok’s behavior “deeply troubling and antithetical to the core values of the FBI and the Justice Department.”
Meanwhile, FBI Director Christopher Wray said that the Office of Professional Responsibility would investigate the matter “fairly but without delay.”
“We will not hesitate to hold people accountable,” Wray said.
Strzok remains an employee of the Bureau, although what he’ll be able to do without a security clearance is a question in and of itself. My guess? He’s going to be sitting through a lot of workplace safety DVD screenings.
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