Peter Strzok, the FBI counterintelligence agent who came under withering criticism from Republicans for a series of anti-Trump text messages he sent during the 2016 campaign, was fired on Friday, his attorney said.
According to Strzok’s lawyer, Aitan Goelman, an internal disciplinary review had recommended Strzok’s demotion and a 60-day suspension. But Goelman said Monday that the deputy director of the FBI overruled that determination and decided to fire him.
At this time two years ago when the FBI began investigating a far-flung foreign conspiracy to throw the 2016 presidential election in Donald Trump’s favor, James Comey was Director of the FBI; Andrew McCabe was 2nd in command and Peter Strzok was Chief of the Bureau’s Counterespionage Section. There was ample suspicion then and ample evidence now that candidate Trump’s associates were deeply involved in the conspiracy. Comey, McCabe and Strzok have now each been fired. The President has threatened each with prosecution.
To listen to the Trumpsters, you would think that Peter Strzok — an FBI agent who had an affair with another FBI agent and who worked on the Clinton email investigation AND the Mueller investigation until July 2017 — was the mastermind of the entire Deep State, the Mueller investigation and, well everything.
The FBI fired him today for… well, who knows. It was a sacrifice to the insane rhetoric against him. No, he shouldn’t have had an affair, and although the APPEARANCE of pro-Hillary bias in his emails didn’t actually affect his work, he shouldn’t have written them in the first place. But none of that is a fire-able offense.
He became fodder for Trump and the Trumpsters. The President, who seems not to be working today, is tweeting about him:
Trump apparently thinks there is a “fighting back” exception to obstruction of justice.