Morning Joe Enlists Peter Strzok to Defend the FBI’s Integrity

Ex-FBI agent Peter Strzok — who was let go by the bureau after it was revealed that he told a colleague that they would “stop” Donald Trump from becoming president — appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Monday, where he assured viewers that Americans should “absolutely… trust what the FBI is doing” in regards to its continued investigation of Trump, which led to the execution of a search warrant at Trump’s residence in Florida.

“It’s not that the FBI is targeting any one side or the other, what you see is the FBI going out on the day-in, day-out basis of objectively investigating allegations of law,” said Strzok, who charged the “right-wing ecosphere” with hypocrisy for their “silence” during the investigation into former secretary of state and Democratic nominee for president Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information.

The bureau’s investigation into Clinton found her guilty of being “grossly negligent,” but then-Director James Comey said that she should not be charged by the Department of Justice in an unorthodox public recommendation.

“We are expressing to Justice our view that no charges are appropriate in this case,” said Comey at the time, who noted that “this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions.”

Strzok, who also participated in the investigation of Clinton before going on to investigate Trump as a member of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team told his colleague Lisa Page, who Strzok was cheating on his wife with in 2016, that “Hillary should win 100,000,000 – 0” while working on the Clinton investigation.

DOJ inspector general Michael Horowitz said that he and his team were “deeply troubled by text messages exchanged between Strzok and Page that potentially indicated or created the appearance that investigative decisions were impacted by bias or improper considerations,” called Strzok’s behavior “antithetical to the core values of the FBI and the Department of Justice,” and that they did not have confidence that the Strzok’s decision to prioritize the Russia investigation over following up on the Weiner laptop was free from bias.

Strzok was far from the only member of the bureau to be found to have mishandled investigations into Trump.

In September 2016, Democratic attorney Michael Sussman brought unfounded allegations of communications between the Trump Organization and a Russian bank to the FBI. While a cursory look at the evidence by agents revealed that it was completely without basis — it had been compiled by agents of the Clinton campaign, and Rodney Joffe, a client of Sussmann’s who was angling for an appointment in a Clinton campaign — FBI leadership, including Comey, was reportedly “fired up” by the allegations and advised field agents “that not investigating the matter was not an option.”

And in January 2021, FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith was sentenced to 12 months probation for altering evidence used to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant used to surveil Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. After the CIA confirmed that Page had served as a source for the agency, Clinesmith inserted the words “not a source” into the FISA application.

Strzok was fired in 2018 and filed a wrongful termination suit the following year that is still ongoing.

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