The Department of Justice finally handed-over a trove of messages exchanged between anti-Trump agents at the FBI over the weekend, but admitted it was unable to retrieve at least five months of texts due to “technical reasons.”
The FBI turned over the communications to federal investigators struggling to understand the level of corruption and bias at the bureau during the 2016 election. Late last-year, senior agent Peter Strzok made national headlines when his private text messages to other agents revealed a stunning level of anti-Trump bias throughout the agency.
“The department also said in a letter to lawmakers that its record of messages sent to and from the agent, Peter Strzok, was incomplete because the FBI, for technical reasons, had been unable to preserve and retrieve about five months’ worth of communications,” writes Yahoo! News.
According to Sen. Ron Johnson, the Republican chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, the new communications span the spring and summer of 2016 and may shed light on the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server as well as the US presidential election.
The communications also include references to former Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s infamous ‘tarmac meeting’ with Bill Clinton.
The FBI claims the “missing texts” are a result of “misconfiguration issues related to rollouts, provisioning, and software upgrades that conflicted with the FBI’s collection capabilities.”
COMEY'S RETURN: The Former FBI Boss Reveals 'Secret' Twitter Account
A close confidant and longtime friend of James Comey confirmed the account’s true identity on twitter, saying “Ok, in light of this latest tweet, I will confirm that @FormerBu is, in fact, James Comey himself.”
Former FBI Director James Comey made national headlines last summer when he decided to not indict doomed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton over her mishandling of classified information; infamously re-opening the case just weeks before the November election.
Clinton cites the public announcement as a key factor in her stunning defeat to then-Candidate Donald Trump last fall, accusing the FBI director of “shivving” her just days before voters went to the polls.
DOJ Searching Trove of Texts from Anti-Trump Agent
The Department of Justice is rummaging through “over 10,000 texts” between the FBI agent recently demoted from Robert Mueller’s investigation for his “anti-Trump bias” and his counterparts at the special counsel’s office.
DOJ officials tell Fox News they’re currently sifting through 10,000 text exchanges to determine the extent of Strzok’s bias, and whether his personal opinions of President Trump impacted his ability to impartially conduct his investigation.
Peter Strzok was secretly re-assigned to the FBI’s Human Resources Department earlier this year after Robert Mueller was informed of his Trump-hating text exchanges with other investigators.
The revelation of anti-Trump operatives inside the special counsel’s office prompted an immediate response from GOP leaders and officials; questioning Mueller’s ability to properly investigate allegations of Russian-Trump collusion throughout the 2016 presidential race.
They’re not the only ones.
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board published a scathing op-ed piece on Thursday, citing the text exchanges and other mistakes as irreparably damaging the special counsel’s office and demanding Mueller’s immediate resignation from the investigation.