Former FBI agent Peter Strzok, whose critics charge with misdeeds that greatly contributed to the Russian collusion hoax, believes the Durham Report and preceding investigation never should have happened.
Speaking to MSNBC — of course — Strzok lamented that the report was merely the “predictable, sad ending to an investigation that never should have taken place.”
Durham Report
August 8, 2016:"Page (then-FBI lawyer): [Trump's] not going to become president, right? Right?!?
"Strzok (then-FBI agent): No. No, he's not. We'll stop it."
–
Lisa Page is now an NBC analyst.
Peter Strzok is now an adjunct faculty member of Georgetown Univ.— James Hutton (@JEHutton) May 15, 2023
That opinion may have something to do with what Durham uncovered.
According to the just-released report, it was September 2016 when the CIA contacted then-FBI Director James Comey and then-Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok. The agency in a memo told of a scheme by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign to tie rival Donald Trump to the Kremlin.
The attempt was being made to tie the Republican to Vladimir Putin and Russian hacking activities. Then-CIA Director James Brennan briefed current leaders, including President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and others.
The CIA’s referral memo warned both Comey and Strzok that the accusations against the Trump campaign could have been Hillary Clinton’s plan for “distracting the public from her use of a private mail server.”
Strzok, who initially headed the probe into the collusion accusations, was fired from the bureau in 2018 after anti-Trump texts to his romantic partner at the time, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, were disclosed.
And despite the disgraced former FBI official’s attempts to downplay the results of the Durham Report, its conclusions are clear. It stated that “the Department and the FBI failed to uphold their mission of strict fidelity to the law in connection with certain events and activities described in this report.”
Durham also pointedly criticized senior FBI personnel, which Strzok at the time was. He said they “displayed a serious lack of analytical rigor towards the information that they received, especially information taken from politically-affiliated persons and entities.”
In other words, they took disclosures that fit their narrative at face value and disregarded those that did not.
The FBI released a statement after the report’s release on Monday. The bureau said that it had taken “dozens of corrective actions” already as a result of findings of the Durham probe. It credited the Special Counsel’s findings with reforms that are now in place.
