North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows took to Twitter Tuesday night to summarize what’s known so far about the FBI’s Peter Strzok scandal, which he says “stinks to high heaven.”
Meadows, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, walked through the timeline of Strzok’s involvement in the Hillary Clinton email investigation as well as a series of text messages that he exchanged with Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer with whom he was having an affair.
Not only were new and shocking details of Strzok and Page’s anti-Trump texts made public in recent days, it was also revealed that the FBI “failed to preserve” five months of Strzok-Page texts during a period when they were working on the investigation into possible Trump campaign collusion.
“Bottom line: tell us the truth,” was Meadows’ demand of the FBI.
Meadows focused on Strzok’s role on the Clinton email investigation and text messages that suggested that he was under “pressure” to end that probe in favor of the former secretary of state.
On May 4, 2016, just after Texas Sen. Ted Cruz dropped out of the Republican primaries, Strzok wrote to Page: “Now the pressure really starts to finish MYE.” (RELATED: FBI Agents Felt ‘Pressure’ To End Clinton Email Probe)
“MYE” refers to “Mid-Year Exam,” the FBI’s code name for the Clinton email investigation.
“So we have Peter Strzok, the deputy of FBI counter-intelligence and lead Clinton investigator, who we already know blasted Trump in text messages, talking about the need to end the Clinton investigation… right after he knew Hillary would be running against Trump,” said Meadows.
“Major problem.”
As Meadows noted, Strzok was the FBI agent who edited James Comey’s exoneration statement of Clinton. He initially called Hillary Clinton “grossly negligent” — a term which carries legal weight — and changed it to “extremely careless.”
“That change is massively important,” said Meadows, who chairs the House Freedom Caucus.
“We have a text from Peter Strzok talking about the pressure to end the Clinton investigation, and then–within 48 hours — documents suggesting Peter Strzok changed Dir. Comey’s letter from criminal charges to just ‘carelessness,'” said Meadows.
“Folks, this stinks to high heaven,” he added.
“If this is anything what it looks like — the FBI changing course on investigation, putting their thumb on the scale to undermine Donald Trump and essentially help Hillary Clinton — that is as wrong as it gets. This demands further investigation.”
In other text messages, Strzok spoke of an “insurance policy” to be taken out in case of a Trump election win. And on Tuesday, the Senate Homeland Security Committee released texts that Strzok and Page exchanged on May 19, 2017, two days after the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel to oversee the Russia investigation.
Strzok expressed hesitation at joining the Mueller investigation, telling Page: “You and I both know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely, I’d be there no question. I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern that there’s no big there there.” (RELATED: In ‘Jaw-Dropping’ Text Exchange, FBI Agents Expressed ‘Concern’ With Mueller Investigation)
Read Meadows’ entire tweet storm here: