STRZOK ON PROSPECT OF A TRUMP PRESIDENCY: “WE CAN’T TAKE THAT RISK”
Chuck Ross of the Daily Caller reports on what might prove to be the most revealing text message exchange between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, both of the FBI. On August 25, 2016, Strzok texted Page:
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.It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.
“Andy” very likely is Andrew McCabe, the Deputy FBI director. But what was the “insurance policy.”
Earlier that month, Page wrote to Strzok, “Maybe you’re meant to stay where you are because you’re meant to protect the country from that menace.” Presumably, “that menace” was a Trump presidency.
Strzok’s cryptic response was: “I can protect our country at many levels, not sure if that helps.”
Strzok did, indeed, operate at many levels. In a sense he is the Zelig of the “Deep State,” popping up everywhere there was high stakes action, including the Hillary email probe, the fateful Michael Flynn interview and, of course, Mueller’s Russia investigation.
Nothing impresses a mistress (it’s said that Page was Strzok’s) like helping her heroine and protecting against her bete noire. Hillary Clinton seems to have been Page’s heroine. Trump clearly was the bete noire of both Page and Strzok.
We have a sense of what Strzok did to help Hillary. He altered James Comey’s statement about the results of the FBI investigation, eliminating language that explicitly describes a crime. Andhe interviewed top Clinton aides Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills.
We know that after Trump was elected resident, Strzok oversaw the interview with Flynn that landed the would-be national security adviser in big-time legal jeopardy and has caused major headaches for Trump. We know that he landed on Team Mueller which is investigating Flynn and, I assume, Trump.
We don’t know what, if anything, Strzok did to try to prevent Trump’s election. However, we know now that Strzok was unwilling to take the risk of a Trump presidency and that (as I read his text message) he mentioned insuring against that result.
JOHN adds: It is shocking that as of August, 2016, senior FBI executives were speculating (if not actually conspiring) as to how Donald Trump could be blocked from becoming president–in the office, apparently, of the Deputy Director. One can only wonder whether James Comey, McCabe’s boss at the time, was aware of, and participated in, such discussions.
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