By John Solomon,\u00a0<\/em>Opinion Contributor Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, the reported FBI lovebirds, are the poster children for the next \u201cDon\u2019t Text and Investigate\u201d public service ads airing soon at an FBI office near you.<\/p>\n Their extraordinary texting affair on their government phones has given the FBI a black eye, laying bare a raw political bias brought into the workplace that agents are supposed to check at the door when they strap on their guns and badges.<\/p>\n It is no longer in dispute that they held animus for\u00a0Donald Trump<\/a><\/span>, who was a subject of their Russia probe, or that they openly discussed using the powers of their office\u00a0to \u201cstop\u201d Trump<\/a>from becoming president. The only question is whether any official acts they took in the Russia collusion probe were driven by those sentiments.<\/p>\n The Justice Department\u2019s inspector general is\u00a0endeavoring<\/a>\u00a0to answer that question.<\/p>\n For any American who wants an answer sooner, there are just five words, among the thousands of suggestive texts Page and Strzok exchanged, that you should read.<\/p>\n That passage was transmitted on May 19, 2017. \u201cThere\u2019s no big there there,\u201d Strzok texted.<\/p>\n The date of the text long has intrigued investigators: It is two days after Deputy Attorney General\u00a0Rod Rosenstein<\/a><\/span>\u00a0named special counsel<\/a>\u00a0Robert Mueller<\/a><\/span>\u00a0to oversee an investigation into alleged collusion between Trump and the Russia campaign.<\/p>\n Since the text was turned over to Congress, investigators wondered whether it referred to the evidence against the Trump campaign.<\/p>\n This month, they finally got the chance to ask. Strzok declined to say \u2014 but Page, during a closed-door interview with lawmakers, confirmed in the most pained and contorted way that the message in fact referred to the quality of the Russia case, according to multiple eyewitnesses.<\/p>\n The admission is deeply consequential. It means Rosenstein unleashed the most awesome powers of a special counsel to investigate an allegation that the key FBI officials, driving the investigation for 10 months beforehand, did not think was \u201cthere.\u201d<\/p>\n By the time of the text and Mueller\u2019s appointment, the FBI\u2019s best counterintelligence agents had had plenty of time to dig. They knowingly\u00a0used a dossier<\/a>\u00a0funded by\u00a0Hillary Clinton<\/a><\/span>\u2019s campaign \u2014 which contained\u00a0uncorroborated allegations<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 to persuade the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court to issue a warrant to monitor Trump campaign adviser Carter Page (no relation to Lisa Page).<\/p>\n They sat on Carter Page\u2019s phones and emails for nearly six months without getting evidence that would warrant prosecuting him. The evidence they had gathered was deemed so weak that their boss, then-FBI Director\u00a0James Comey<\/a><\/span>, was\u00a0forced to admit to Congress<\/a>\u00a0after being fired by Trump that the core allegation remained substantially uncorroborated.<\/p>\n In other words, they had a big nothing burger. And, based on that empty-calorie dish, Rosenstein authorized the buffet menu of a special prosecutor that has cost America\u00a0millions of dollars<\/a>\u00a0and months of political strife.<\/p>\n The work product Strzok created to justify the collusion probe now has been shown to be inferior: A Clinton-hired contractor produced multiple documents accusing Trump of wrongdoing during the election;\u00a0each was routed to the FBI<\/a>\u00a0through a different source or was used to seed news articles with similar allegations that further built an uncorroborated public narrative of Trump-Russia collusion. Most troubling, the FBI relied on at least one of those news stories to justify the FISA warrant against Carter Page.<\/p>\n That sort of multifaceted allegation machine, which can be traced back to a single source, is known in spy craft as \u201ccircular intelligence reporting,\u201d and it\u2019s the sort of bad product that professional spooks are trained to spot and reject.<\/p>\n But Team Strzok kept pushing it through the system, causing a major escalation of a probe for which, by his own words, he knew had \u201cno big there there.\u201d<\/p>\n The answer as to why a pro such as Strzok would take such action has become clearer, at least to congressional investigators. That clarity comes from the context of the other emails and text messages that surrounded the May 19, 2017, declaration.<\/p>\n It turns out that what Strzok and Lisa Page were really doing that day was debating whether they should stay with the FBI and try to rise through the ranks to the level of an assistant director (AD) or join Mueller\u2019s special counsel team.<\/p>\n \u201cWho gives a f*ck, one more AD like [redacted] or whoever?\u201d Strzok wrote, weighing the merits of promotion, before apparently suggesting what would be a more attractive role: \u201cAn investigation leading to impeachment?\u201d<\/p>\n Lisa Page apparently realized the conversation had gone too far and tried to reel it in. \u201cWe should stop having this conversation here,\u201d she texted back, adding later it was important to examine \u201cthe different realistic outcomes of this case.\u201d<\/p>\n A few minutes later Strzok texted his own handicap of the Russia evidence: \u201cYou and I both know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely, I\u2019d be there no question. I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern there\u2019s no big there there.\u201d<\/p>\n So the FBI agents who helped drive the Russia collusion narrative \u2014 as well as Rosenstein\u2019s decision to appoint Mueller \u2014 apparently knew all along that the evidence was going to lead to \u201cnothing\u201d and, yet, they proceeded because they thought there was still a possibility of impeachment.<\/p>\n Impeachment is a political outcome. The only logical conclusion, then, that congressional investigators can make is that political bias led these agents to press an investigation forward to achieve the political outcome of impeachment, even though their professional training told them it had \u201cno big there there.\u201d<\/p>\n And that, by definition, is political bias in action.<\/p>\n How concerned you are by this conduct is almost certainly affected by your love or hatred for Trump. But put yourself for a second in the hot seat of an investigation by the same FBI cast of characters: You are under investigation for a crime the agents don\u2019t think occurred, but the investigation still advances because the desired outcome is to get you fired from your job.<\/p>\n Is that an FBI you can live with?<\/p>\n John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists\u2019 misuse of foster children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He is The Hill\u2019s executive vice president for video.<\/em><\/p>\n The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill.<\/em><\/p>\n ___ One FBI text message in Russia probe that should alarm every American By John Solomon,\u00a0Opinion Contributor The Hill Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, the reported FBI lovebirds, are the poster children for the next \u201cDon\u2019t Text and Investigate\u201d public service … Continue reading
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\nhttp:\/\/thehill.com\/hilltv\/rising\/397902-opinion-one-fbi-text-message-in-russia-probe-should-alarm-every-american<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"