President Trump and his allies have hinged their "witch hunt" narrative in part on private text messages the Trump administration released between FBI lawyer Lisa Page and FBI agent Peter Strzok, both of whom have since left the FBI. Some of the text messages suggested the pair would have preferred that Hillary Clinton, not Trump, win the 2016 election.
The report Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz released Monday on the FBI's handling of the Trump-Russia investigation found no "documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation" influenced the decision to investigate members of Trump's 2016 campaign, including from Page — who played no role in those decisions — or Strzok.
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In Nov. 9, 2016, text messages, the supervisory agent said he "was so elated with the election" and volunteered to investigate the Clinton Foundation "if you hear talk of a special prosecutor." When confronted with his texts, the SSA explained it was "just energizing to me to see" Clinton lose because "I didn't want a criminal to be in the White House."
In Horowitz's previous report on the FBI and the 2016 election, he detailed how FBI and Justice Department leaders were so concerned about anti-Clinton leaks from the FBI's New York field office — former Attorney General Loretta Lynch told Horowitz it was "clear to me that there is a cadre of senior people in New York who have a deep and visceral hatred of Secretary Clinton" — they decided they had to publicly disclose that the FBI was briefly reopening the Clinton email investigation in late October 2016.
"It played as a stunning piece of news, a fresh gust of scandal 11 days before the election," The New York Times recounted Sunday. Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, then a top campaign surrogate, had teased this "surprise," citing FBI agents, showing yet again "that working with virtually nothing, he could cultivate the mere existence of investigations to his political benefit."
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