The FBI blocked all information on its website about a top counterterrorism official who was kicked off of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation for sending politically-biased text messages to an FBI lawyer.
“FBI site blocked all the information about him,” reads a Google response to a search conducted of the FBI website for Peter Strzok, the embattled FBI agent.
Google search results for FBI information about Peter Strzok (Retrieved on Dec. 5, 2017)
It was revealed on Saturday that Strzok was removed from Mueller’s team in August after the Department of Justice’s inspector general discovered that he exchanged anti-Trump and pro-Hillary Clinton text messages with his mistress, an FBI lawyer named Lisa Page who also worked on the Mueller team. (RELATED: 6 Questions That Mueller Should Answer About Anti-Trump Investigator)
Strzok was sent to the FBI’s human resources department. The circumstances of the demotion remained a mystery for several months, with Mueller’s office refusing to provide background information on the personnel move.
The revelation of Strzok’s biased texts is significant because of his central role in both the Russia investigation and the Clinton email probe. As the FBI’s No. 2 counter-terrorism official, Strzok helped start both of the investigations. He also conducted interviews with former national security adviser Michael Flynn in the Russia investigation and with Clinton and several of her top aides in the email inquiry.
It is not known when the FBI blocked information about Strzok on its website. A request for comment submitted to the bureau was not returned.
The Google search for information on Strzok returns one document involving the FBI employee — a May 16, 2016 email in which FBI officials were asked to review a draft of a statement that then-FBI Director James Comey planned to give at the conclusion of the Clinton email investigation.
The FBI published that document on its Freedom of Information Act portal. Strzok was identified on Monday as the FBI official who edited the language in Comey’s so-called exoneration statement. He changed a phrase referring to Clinton’s email actions as “grossly negligent” to “extremely careless.”
The change was significant because gross negligence in the handling of classified information is a federal crime, whereas extreme carelessness is not a legal term.
The FBI has not blocked information for other FBI officials listed in the Comey draft email.
Update: A spokesman for the FBI contacted The Daily Caller after this article was published to say that the bureau did not block information about Strzok from the bureau’s website.