My Error

For John, BLUF:  Let us readdress on Monday.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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A Review of Various Actions by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Justice in Advance of the 2016 Election

Here is the deal.  On City Life Show this morning (Local Lowell Channel 8, Repeat at 4:00 PM this afternoon or here on the Internet) I raised the question of a Text Message interchange between DOJ Lawyer Lisa Page and FBI Agent Peter Strzok.

The exchange I mentioned was this one:

Lisa Page text to Peter Strzok: “(Trump’s) not ever going to become president, right? Right?!”

Strzok: “No. No he’s not. We’ll stop it.”

The show's producer immediately jumped on me for this, for which I did not have (foolishly, on my part) "proof".  It was, he suggested, all part of the fake news we hear and see every day.  My co-host, Jim, did not disagree with the Producer and our guest, Erik, was on his side also.  So, my question of how we take that just died right there.

After the show, I went to a meeting of the "Access to Healthy Foods Working Group", and then came home and opened the above referenced DOJ IG Report.

Here are the two quotes, from the source:

We were deeply troubled by text messages exchanged between [Peter] Strzok and [Lisa] Page that potentially indicated or created the appearance that investigative decisions were impacted by bias or improper considerations. Most of the text messages raising such questions pertained to the Russia investigation, which was not a part of this review. Nonetheless, when one senior FBI official, Strzok, who was helping to lead the Russia investigation at the time, conveys in a text message to another senior FBI official, Page, “No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it” in response to her question “[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!”, it is not only indicative of a biased state of mind but, even more seriously, implies a willingness to take official action to impact the presidential candidate’s electoral prospects. This is antithetical to the core values of the FBI and the Department of Justice.

DoD IG Report, Pages xi and xii

So, how do we understand this.  Is this just casual banter between two DOJ "colleagues" or is this, as the IG Report suggests, an indication of Swamp People who had decided that they should move from their Civil Service neutrality into a more partisan position?

My take is that if you are not concerned you don't understand how serious the situation is.

Regards  —  Cliff