Chuck Ross on June 18, 2018
The Department of Justice’s inspector general said Monday that his investigators went to extensive lengths to obtain a text message in which former FBI official Peter Strzok suggested that he planned to help prevent President Donald Trump from becoming president.
Michael Horowitz, the head of the DOJ’s office of inspector general (OIG), said that his cyber forensics team took four separate investigative steps before discovering a controversial Aug. 8, 2016 text message that Strzok sent to former FBI attorney Lisa Page.
The forensic team went as far as contacting the Pentagon for help in extracting text messages that were missing from Strzok and Page’s FBI-issued cell phones.
The text message in question was recovered early last month and first publicized on Friday in a report that the OIG released on the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email practices. “(Trump’s) not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” Page, the FBI lawyer, wrote to Strzok.
“No. No he’s not. We’ll stop it,” replied Strzok, who served as the FBI’s top investigator on “Crossfire Hurricane,” the FBI counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign’s possible ties to Russia.
The investigation started days before the text message, on July 31, 2016.
Republicans have pointed to the text message as evidence of political bias on the part of Strzok, who worked for several months on the special counsel’s Russia investigation. The OIG report said that the text message showed that Strzok “of a biased state of mind” and implied “a willingness to take official action to impact the presidential candidate’s electoral prospects.”
Strzok’s response to Page is conspicuously absent from previous batches of text messages given to Congress. Page’s question to Strzok was included in those earlier releases.
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Horowitz said that while the initial process of obtaining Strzok-Page messages from the FBI was “easy,” recovering the “We’ll stop it” text proved “challenging.” He also said that the painstaking process used to recover the message and others raises concerns about the FBI’s text message retention system.
Horowitz said that the OIG’s cyber forensic team obtained Strzok and Page’s FBI phones in order to extract any missing text messages. The team then relied on an outside contractor that the agency frequently uses in order to see whether there were other forensic tools that could extract messages from the phones.
“They provided us with some additional tools, so we did a second extraction and gained more text messages,” Horowitz testified.
The third step was an outreach to the Department of Defense to see if Pentagon experts had any other tools that could be used for the investigation.
“They gave us those tools and we used that and we extracted more text messages,” said Horowitz.
The Aug. 8, 2016 Strzok text was discovered during a routine quality control check that the OIG conducted in early May, Horowitz said.
OIG’s forensic examiners discovered “that the phone had a database on it that was actually also doing a collection of text messages,” said Horowitz.
“They extracted those messages from the phone and found the second part of the August 8 text, ‘No, no, We’ll stop it.’”
“It turned out that the FBI wasn’t aware that that database on there, which was supposed to be an operating function, was actually collecting data,” explained Horowitz, who plans to release a report on the OIG’s text message recovery process.
What Horowitz did not explain — and was not asked — was why Strzok’s portion of the Aug. 8, 2016 message was so difficult to find.
Horowitz said that the FBI’s failure to discover the text messages raises concerns about whether the bureau was able to collect all of its agents’ and officials’ text messages.
“We are not convinced that the FBI was collecting 100 percent of the text messages,” he said.
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Let me see if I get this right – they only found the message because the FBI wasn’t aware of the database being stored on the phone and failed to scrub the phone well enough before handing it over…? Not only does the text itself provide undeniable evidence of bias on the part of the lead FBI agent involved in both the Hillary email coverup and dismissal, but the investigation into Donald Trump’s “collusion with Russians” that never took place, but it also provides testimony from the IG himself showing extreme corruption and bias on the part of the FBI, which his report illogically concluded did not exist, just like Comey’s conclusion after laying out the most damning and incontrovertible case against Hillary at his July 2016 press conference was that she shouldn’t be prosecuted… both proving the Deep State does in fact exist, and is in fact alive and well in DC…. Horowitz is obviously NOT impartial, and did NOT do his job properly by failing to come to the most obvious conclusions even someone with the most basic understanding of the report contents would undeniably come to…. and he FAILED to recommend CRIMINAL ACTION against individuals that he discovered had committed criminal acts such as sharing confidential and classified information with members of the media…
Well, of COURSE it was “challenging”–because they DELETED those Tweets off their phones, knowing DAMNED well those Tweets would reveal just how BIASED they really were, and out them for the Trump-hating LOONS they really ARE, and certainly not fit to be involved in ANY investigation against Pres. Trump, because of their ADORATION of Hillary and ABJECT HATRED of Pres. Trump!
Strozk was just “escorted out of the FBI” according to his attorney, FOX news just reported.
I sure hope that means he is about to be FIRED, as he certainly SHOULD have been before he was allowed to come within a MILE of the BS WITCH HUNT/Mueller investigation as one of its “lead investigators.” NOR, given his naked ADORATION of all things Hillary, should he have EVER been allowed to take part in the Hillary email “investigation,” if you can call that whitewash job they did an “investigation.” Many of us have wondered how in HELL Hillary managed to walk away scot-free, no matter HOW outrageous and BLATANT her crimes–and after seeing the people who were in charge of “investigating” her, I guess we NOW understand how that happened, don’t we!
So the excuse again is that the IT department is filled with idiots who can’t make a simple backup of data.
I think we should start subpoenas for all involved IT people supposedly responsible for the “failures” and find out whether they don’t have a different story – like, “my boss directed me to do it.” Then perp walk the bosses.
OBAMA is now caught LYING about when he learned about SLICK WILLIE’s WENCH
Toilet Servers! Chicken Lips Obama claimed he learned about it from the media like the rest of us!
WHAT A LIAR!!!!!!
The Counterfeiter had his own MONIKER and address the Wench many times!
He had a False E-Mail Address he used!!!!!
DEMIs! Let us hear your Soliloquy!
How he forgot or he was framed by the Russians!!!!!!!
And as always NOTHING will come of it….. firing squad would be in order for you and I but these POS get away with anything…. including MURDER….
…. the Horowitz team turned to the Pentagon for help in extracting text messages hidden from them by Strzok and Page in their fbi-issued cell phones ….
Could have saved time and money by calling the NSC.
or Moscow, Pyongyang, Pakhtunkhwa or Peking.
Anyway the Parks Commission is still operating with dignity but I don’t know what other government agency is operating above board these days.
B.S. FROM FBI, DOJ AND ALL THE REST OF THESE TRUMP HATING AGENCIES. WE NOW KNOW THAT THE IRS IS CORRUPT SINCE THEY AUDITED ONLY REPUBLICANS WITH THEIR CAMPAIGN DONATIONS. IF THESE CRIMINALS ARE NOT PROSECUTED WE HAVE LOST AMERICA. SAD, SAD DAYS AHEAD.
Remind me again, why are Strzok and Page still employed by the FBI??? Has the FBI given up even the pretense of integrity??? They were not fired, just re-assigned. Unless their re-assignment included a lobotomy, or shock treatments, they are still politically biased. We cannot allow FBI employees to display nor practice political bias, they then become weapons for a political party and don’t investigate corrupt subordinates……oh yeah…like just happened. :-(
I agree totally with Debi !
I AGREE WITH COMBO AND DEBI
Lisa Page resigned in May, but Strzok is there in Human Resources.
…. Has the FBI given up even the pretense of integrity …?
Doh!?
Ever heard of little Eddy Hoover? Vicky Weaver and/or her little boy, Sammy?
The Reverend David Koresh, his wife and babies and the 100-odd of his congregation, students, friends and their spouses and babies mass murdered at Waco Texas?
And scores of other innocents haunted and hunted to death by that unlawful, illegal, criminal, unconstitutional and in large part loathsome and fearsome feral-gummint/Deep-State mob?
“Has the FBI given up even the pretense of integrity???”
Why YES, Debi. Yes, they HAVE!
It sounds like a script from the old “Keystone Cops”
If you use the people’s equipment or time, expect to have that recorded. Even if you write with your own pen on your own paper, the act of creating any record at work makes it a public record. If you are reckless about your ethics, you will be found out on the public record, which is everything you say and do while employed by the public. Ask Trump. Now he cannot stop you from asking on a tweet… He cannot block you. Of course, everything you say to him is ALSO a public record.
Hogwash by both FBI, DOJ and IG, they’re all in it to take Trump down including the republican establishment.
CUOMO NY. BAKER,MA. HICKENLOOPER, CO. PULL TROOPS FROM BORDER. COMMUNIST STUNT.
ALL THREE GOVERNORS VOTE TO KILL KIDS. 2200 KIDS DETAINED AT THE BORDER. 3,000 AMERICAN KIDS, WILL HAVE THEIR HEADS CUT OFF TODAY. YOU WANT TO SEE CRUEL AND INHUMANE?
GO TO ANY DEMOCRAT CHOP SHOP AND WATCH THEM PULL A BABY FROM IT’S MOTHER LIMB FROM LIMB. TODAY PLANNED SLAUGHTERHOOD WILL KILL 1100 BLACK BABIES, 1200 WHITE BABIES AND 700 LATINO NINIOS. EVERY DAY. 3,000 -4700 AMERICAN KIDS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNkhUJCCJao
ABHU YOU ARE CORRECT. LEGAL AMERICANS FIRST. WE R NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR CRIMINALS CHILDREN. BUILD THAT WALL, STOP ALL IMMIGRATION, VOTE OUT ALL OF THE LIBERALS. AMERICA FIRST.