The Department of Justice official who interviewed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as part of the investigation into her emails is leaving the agency, he announced on Wednesday.
David Laufman, who leads the DOJ’s counterintelligence division, is leaving the DOJ for “personal reasons,” according to The Washington Post.
In addition to working on the investigation into Clinton’s handling of classified information, Laufman has also worked on the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
On the Clinton investigation, he sat in on interviews with the former secretary of state and several of her aides, including Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin and Jake Sullivan.
He was joined in those interviews by Peter Strzok, the FBI agent who is currently embroiled in a scandal over politically charged text messages.
WATCH:
Strzok’s texts suggest a less than amicable relationship with Laufman, who served as chief of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section. (RELATED: DOJ Official Who Interviewed Clinton Is An Obama Donor)
“I am getting aggravated at Laufman,” Strzok wrote in one March 23, 2016, text message to FBI lawyer Lisa Page.
“But he’s literally doing nothing other than sitting in on the big interviews,” he said in another dated April 9, 2016.
The timing of Laufman’s decision is sure to raise questions because of a Justice Department inspector general’s forthcoming report about the FBI and DOJ’s handling of the Clinton email investigation. Strzok’s texts were discovered during the court of that investigation.
“It’s tough to leave a mission this compelling and an institution as exceptional as the Department of Justice. But I know that prosecutors and agents will continue to bring to their work precisely what the American people should expect: a fierce and relentless commitment to protect the national security of the United States,” Laufman told The Post in a statement.
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