Over the past 10 days we've learned a lot about FBI agent Peter Strzok, a man who very likely would have lived the remainder of his life in relative obscurity as an FBI counterintelligence agent but for his sudden dismissal from Special Counsel Mueller's "Russian Collusion" investigation.
As we noted on December 2nd (see: Mueller's Top FBI Agent Probing Clinton Emails, Russian-Collusion "Removed" After Anti-Trump Texts Found), Strzok's life became far more complicated when it was revealed that his dismissal from Mueller's team was linked to the discovery of multiple "anti-Trump text messages" shared with a colleague...a colleague with whom he happened to be having an extramarital affair.
Of course, like most twisted Washington D.C. scandals, his overt political bias and anti-Trump text messages were only the tip of the iceberg as it was subsequently discovered that Strzok not only held a leading role in the Hillary email investigation but potentially single-handedly saved her from prosecution by making the now-infamous change in Comey's final statement to describe her email abuses as "extremely careless" rather than the original language of "grossly negligent."
Of course, as we noted a month ago (see: First Comey Memo Concluded Hillary Was "Grossly Negligent," Punishable By Jail), the change in language was significant since federal law states that "gross negligence" in handling the nation’s intelligence can be punished criminally with prison time or fines whereas "extreme carelessness" has no such legal definition and/or ramifications.
All that said, while ill-advised, sending anti-Trump texts to your mistress is certainly not illegal and probably doesn't violate any FBI statutes that would require dismissal from an ongoing investigation...if we're wrong on that then we would highly encourage Mueller to look at the text messages of the remainder of his team because we're almost certain he would have to replace everyone.
So, that brings us back to the key question surrounding Peter Strzok...why exactly was he fired from the Trump investigation?
As it turns out, Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) has an interesting theory on that question which he shared during his questioning of FBI Director Chris Wray last week. To summarize, Jordan's theory is that Strzok received the controversial "Trump Dossier" from the Clinton campaign then went to the FISA courts where he passed it off as a legitimate piece of intelligence in an effort to obtain the warrants necessary to effectively spy on the Trump campaign.
"Here's what I think Director Wray. I think Peter Strzok, head of counter intelligence at the FBI, Peter Strzok the guy who ran the Clinton investigation and did all the interviews, Peter Strzok, the guy who was running the Russia investigation at the FBI, Peter Strzok, Mr. 'Super Agent' at the FBI, I think he's the guy who took the application to the FISA court...and if that happened...if you have the FBI working with the Democrats' campaign, taking opposition research, dressing it all up and turning it into an intelligence document and taking it to the FISA court so they can spy on the other campaign...if that happened...that's as wrong as it gets."
Rep. Jim Jordan questions FBI Director Chris Wray about agent Peter Strzok being removed from Mueller's special counsel for pro-Clinton bias. https://t.co/w8cOMfew9n … pic.twitter.com/QpDBoFd3i5
— Constitutional Republic News (@CRepublicNews) December 8, 2017
Of course, Director Wray could clear up any confusion on this topic by simply releasing the FISA application but that would just be too simple now wouldn't it?