The FBI agent who wrote those anti-Trump texts was also key in reopening the Clinton email probe just before the election

Hillary Clinton.
(Image credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

An FBI employee accused of harboring bias against President Trump played a pivotal role in reviving the bureau's investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails, CNN reported Wednesday. Agent Peter Strzok reportedly helped draft the letter that former FBI Director James Comey sent to Congress in October 2016, announcing the FBI was reopening its probe into Clinton's private email server. Comey's letter has been cited by some analysts — as well as by Clinton herself — as being instrumental to her loss to Donald Trump in the election.

The new report on Strzok's role in the Clinton investigation complicates the narrative pushed by President Trump and several prominent Republicans that Strzok was proof of bias against the president within the FBI. Strzok was originally staffed on Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election meddling, but was removed from the probe after Mueller was made aware of texts he'd sent disparaging Trump.

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Kelly O'Meara Morales

Kelly O'Meara Morales is a staff writer at The Week. He graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and studied Middle Eastern history and nonfiction writing amongst other esoteric subjects. When not compulsively checking Twitter, he writes and records music, subsists on tacos, and watches basketball.