Newly revealed text messages between FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page seem to imply that former President Barack Obama wanted to be made intimately familiar with the details of the FBI’s investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.
Page was writing to Strzok on the subject of prepping former FBI Director James Comey on the investigation when she wrote, “potus wants to know everything we’re doing.” The text raises questions about the level of involvement former President Obama had in the investigation.
Strzok and Page had exchanged hundreds of text messages during the 2016 presidential election that were disparaging of then-candidate Donald Trump. Republicans have seized on the messages as evidence of an anti-Trump bias at the FBI, as well as within special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling. Both Strzok and Page had previously been on Mueller’s team.
The newly revealed text messages will undoubtedly widen an already existing rift between the White House, Congressional Republican’s and the FBI. The president tweeted earlier today that the new texts are “bombshells.”
NEW FBI TEXTS ARE BOMBSHELLS!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 7, 2018
Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee have voted to send a memo rebutting a Republican memo laying out alleged FBI abuses of the Russia investigation to the White House for approval. The president has until the end of this week to approve its release or reject it.