It’s time for the country to hear from FBI agent Peter Strzok.
The president and his supporters argue that Strzok’s early involvement in the Russia probe taints the entire investigation. On Thursday Trump tweeted that Strzok “was given poor marks on yesterday’s closed-door testimony” and that Strzok’s role in the Russia investigation was further evidence of the “witch hunt” against him. But although the president himself had called for Strzok’s testimony to be public, Congress did not agree.
Strzok certainly doesn’t act like someone with anything to hide. He offered to testify publicly and without a subpoena. He didn’t take the Fifth or demand immunity. Unlike the president in his dealings with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, Strzok did not haggle for months over the terms or scope of an interview. Nevertheless, Congress first threatened to subpoena him unnecessarily and then chose to keep his testimony under wraps.
Strzok is on the hot seat primarily based on a few dozen text messages out of more than 40,000 that he and Page exchanged on FBI devices. In the most widely reported exchange, Page texted that Trump’s “not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” and Strzok responded, “No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it.”
There’s no question Strzok and Page used poor judgment in exchanging the messages, and they admitted as much to the IG. But they both claim their personal political views did not affect their professional decisions. Strzok told the IG that within the FBI there is a “bright and inviolable line between what you think personally . . . and the conduct of your official business,” and that he never crossed that line.
In today’s hyperpartisan environment, Strzok’s defense may sound hard to believe, but it’s perfectly plausible. As a former prosecutor of public corruption cases, I’ve worked with many FBI agents and prosecutors who had personal political views but did not allow those views to affect their work. That’s an essential part of being a good investigator.
But what about Strzok’s “We’ll stop it” text message? Most have assumed that “we” means the FBI. But it’s at least as likely that Strzok, in a personal message to his girlfriend, was referring to we the voters, or we the American people. That would have been an unremarkable sentiment shared by about half the people in the country, who could not believe that Trump would ever be elected. It’s quite a leap to go from that text message to a claim that Strzok tried to use his official powers to tip the election.
And there’s no evidence that he did. The inspector general concluded the text messages suggested possible bias and “cast a cloud” over the FBI. But the IG also found no evidence that “these political views directly affected the specific investigative decisions that we reviewed.” The problems found by the IG were problems of appearance, not substance.
But maybe, despite his exhaustive investigation, the IG got it wrong. Maybe Strzok really was part of a “deep state” conspiracy to take down Trump — even though everything the FBI did during the email investigation actually ended up hurting his opponent. Maybe that same conspiracy now infects Mueller’s probe. If that’s the fear, what’s the argument for keeping Strzok’s testimony secret?
At a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday, Republicans blasted Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, accusing him of withholding information about the Russia probe and supposed bias within the FBI. “We have caught you hiding information from Congress,” accused Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). “This hearing emphasizes the importance of transparency,” stated Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.).
These congressmen who claim to be interested in transparency and full disclosure should be eager to make Strzok’s testimony public — particularly since the president claims that testimony will provide evidence of the “witch hunt” against him. So what are these Republicans hiding?
Strzok’s text messaging habits, however imprudent, have nothing to do with the merits of the Mueller investigation. Keeping his testimony secret leads only to selective leaks, spin and speculation. Let’s hear what he actually had to say.
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