Senior FBI agent Peter Strzok has been dismissed from the bureau, his lawyer told The Washington Post on Monday.
Strzok was fired after the FBI's inspector general found he had sent text messages to FBI lawyer Lisa Page that revealed antipathy toward President Trump. In 2016, Strzok told Page "we'll stop" Trump from becoming president. Strzok was involved with the investigation into Russia's election interference, but he testified last month that his personal dislike for Trump did not influence his work; an internal investigation found no evidence otherwise. That hasn't stopped Trump from holding Strzok up as an example of the "illegitimate witch hunt" against him, however, as the president has claimed against evidence that the FBI has acted with bias against the Trump administration.
FBI disciplinary officials had decided Strzok, a 22-year veteran of the agency, should be demoted and suspended, but the bureau's deputy director ordered him fired Friday instead. The New York Times notes that "it is not clear why [Strzok] ... was dismissed at this time," given the text messages have been public knowledge for months. Strzok's attorney said his termination went against months of assurances that Strzok would not be punished beyond the agency's ordinary disciplinary standards. Read more at The Washington Post.