investigation of Trump. For example, Peter Strzok[1] and Lisa Page[2] were directly involved in matters relating to the opening of Crossfire Hurricane. Strzok was the Agent who both wrote and approved the electronic communication opening the matter from the very start as a full investigation rather than an assessment or preliminary investigation. At the time, Page was serving as Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s Special Assistant, and, according to Strzok, it was McCabe who directed that the Crossfire Hurricane investigation be “opened immediately” after information described more fully below was received from Australian authorities in late July 2016.[3] Over a period of months prior to the opening of Crossfire Hurricane, Strzok and Page had exchanged numerous messages, which are already in the public domain and express a very clear prejudice against Trump. For example:
August 16, 2015:
Strzok: [Bernie Sanders is] an idiot like Trump.[4]
December 20, 2015 (After exchanging an article about Trump):
Page: What an utter idiot. Strzok: No doubt.[5]
March 3, 2016:
Page: God [T]rump is a loathsome human. Strzok: Yet he may win [the Republican nomination]. Good for Hillary. Page: It is. Strzok: Would he be a worse president than [C]ruz? Page: Trump? Yes, I think so. Strzok: I’m not sure. Omg [Trump’s] an idiot. Page: He’s awful. Strzok: America will get what the voting public deserves. Page: That’s what I’m afraid of.
- ↑ Strzok was a Section Chief and later the Deputy Assistant Director in the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division. (For the positions held by those involved in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, see the chart in the Redacted OIG Review at 81–82.) Strzok agreed to provide information to the Office concerning matters related to the FBI’s Alfa Bank investigation, but otherwise declined to be interviewed by the Office on matters related to his role in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
- ↑ Page was an attorney in FBI’s OGC who was detailed as a Special Assistant to Deputy Director McCabe’s Office.
- ↑ Strzok, Compromised at 115.
- ↑ FBI-0008217 (Office of Professional Responsibility [OPR] letter to Strzok dated 08/08/2016) at 4.
- ↑ Id.
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