RATCLIFFE: You’re making it sound like it was the Department [of Justice] that told you you’re not going to charge gross negligence because we’re the prosecutors and we’re telling you we’re not going to—
PAGE: That’s correct.
RATCLIFFE: —bring the case.50
It had long been suspected that Lynch, as head of the Department of Justice, had seen to it that Clinton was shielded from prosecution. On July 1, 2016, Page texted Strzok that “she [Lynch] knows no charges will be brought.”51 Clinton had not yet been interviewed by the FBI, but her exoneration was predetermined. Her answers were a superfluous exercise. The investigation was a sham.
On the day he absolved Clinton, Comey made a point of saying “I have not coordinated or reviewed this statement in any way with the Department of Justice or any other part of the government. They do not know what I am about to say.”52 Yet according to Strzok and Page, the DOJ knew exactly what he was going to say because the department had ordered Comey’s FBI not to pursue a charge against Clinton under the most likely legal avenue—the “grossly negligent” provision of the Espionage Act.
The closed-door testimony of Page leaves no doubt that the FBI had made up its mind to clear Clinton long before she and most of the key witnesses surrounding her mishandling of classified documents were even interviewed. Page admitted that “Every single person on the team, whether FBI or DOJ, knew far earlier than July that we were not going to be able to make out sufficient evidence to charge a crime.”53 She indicated that that decision had been made perhaps as early as March 2016. That is a remarkable admission of how the process was corrupted. A conclusion was reached before much of the evidence was properly examined. No one could know Clinton’s intent or knowledge without asking her, as well as more than a dozen other people who had been involved. Clinton’s interview was a mere formality. The investigation was a farce.
Though the FBI consistently denied that political bias influenced its decision, evidence shows that the Bureau was acutely aware of the political necessity of clearing Clinton before the Democratic National Convention, which was set to begin on July 25, 2016. That was something that should never have factored into the decision-making process. Despite that, it seems to have been a guiding principle that dictated the course of the probe. At the Bureau, there was a rush by Comey and others to liberate the expected nominee of the investigation’s criminal cloud, as reflected in an illuminating text that betrayed the FBI’s facade of political indifference. When Trump secured the Republican nomination, the following exchange took place:
STRZOK: I saw Trump won, figured it would be a bit.
STRZOK: Now the pressure really starts to finish MYE [Midyear Exam].
PAGE: It sure does. We need to talk about follow up call tomorrow. We still never have.54
“Midyear Exam” was the innocuous-sounding name the FBI had attached to the Clinton probe, but the text makes explicit that the Bureau was anxious to conclude it in time for Clinton to accept her party’s nomination. That exchange of messages occurred a full two months before she was even interviewed by the FBI, along with a dozen other key witnesses in the case who had yet to be questioned.
Sure enough, within weeks the necessary changes were made in Comey’s statement to clear Clinton. A brief interview with Clinton—not under oath—was scheduled for July 2, 2016, and Comey’s exoneration would be announced three days later.
In the interim, the candidate’s husband, former president Bill Clinton, met furtively with Lynch on June 27, 2016, inside the attorney general’s plane, which was parked on the tarmac of Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, Arizona.55 That was a scant five days before the former secretary of state was to be questioned by the FBI and thereafter cleared of any wrongdoing. There is no known written account of what exactly was said during the private discussion. Lynch refused to offer any details, and both parties dismissed it as nothing more than a “primarily social” interaction.56
Remember the standard the DOJ was attempting to establish here: meetings that appear nefarious should be given a pass if the participants say that nothing untoward happens. Apply that standard to the Russia hoax, and there’s nothing left to investigate.
Consider the meeting in its broader context: The husband of the subject of a criminal investigation was meeting secretly with the one person who could ensure that charges would not be brought against his wife. Was the ex-president assured in this meeting that his spouse would face no legal obstacle in her quest to win the presidency? Was any pressure brought to bear to secure the equivalent of a “get out of jail free” card?
It cannot be overlooked that Lynch owed her career to Bill Clinton. She was required under federal regulations to recuse herself from the government investigation because of both a personal and a professional relationship with the spouse of its subject.57 She refused to recuse herself, saying only that she would accept the recommendations of the FBI. In the process, she was abdicating the Justice Department’s legal responsibility while improperly delegating it to Comey’s FBI. Neither was ever going to allow Clinton to be prosecuted. Lynch’s motivation in protecting the target of their investigation was obvious: if Clinton were to be cleared and won the presidency, the attorney general might well have maintained her coveted position of power as head of the Justice Department.
As the investigation progressed in name only, Clinton was furiously attempting to cover up what she had done by peddling a successive series of arrant deceptions. At first, she claimed, “I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified material.”58 When evidence surfaced to the contrary, she changed her story to say, “I never sent or received any information that was classified at the time it was sent or received.”59 As more facts emerged directly contradicting this unlikely claim, Clinton altered her story for a third time by asserting “I never sent or received any email that was marked classified.”60 That, too, proved to be untrue. Many of the emails had been marked classified. Even Comey called that statement untrue.61
Then Clinton altered her story yet again by proclaiming that she had not realized that the parenthetical “C” meant classified material at the confidential level when it appeared on documents.62 As preposterous as that sounded, she was effectively arguing her own incompetence. Besides, the markings were irrelevant under the law, since the content—not the markings—made them classified. Under the law, it was no defense for Clinton to claim she had not known that certain matters were classified. Finally, she abandoned all of those excuses and resorted to the blanket assertion that “Everything I did was permitted by law and regulation.”63 It was not.
Clinton established an unauthorized private communications system, used it to house thousands of classified government records, left it vulnerable to theft by hacking, and jeopardized national security. That is precisely what the law forbids. There is evidence that she broke other laws, including obstruction of justice statutes, by destroying more than 30,000 documents subject to a duly authorized subpoena issued by Congress, as well as orders for the preservation of documents.64 If anyone else had done that, he or she would most assuredly have been prosecuted for crimes committed.
The FBI’s Bias Against Trump
Once Clinton was absolved, the FBI immediately turned its full attention to the political opponent who was the only remaining obstacle in her path to the White House. That was the moment the Bureau began its Trump-Russia investigation in earnest. The pretext for the probe was an unfounded accusation that Trump was “colluding” with Russia to win the presidential election. Thus, as one case ended, the other began. It literally happened on the same day that the FBI made its stunning announcement that the soon-to-be Democratic nominee was free and clear.
As Comey stood in front of television cameras on July 5, 2016, his FBI was meeting secretly in London with Christopher Steele, the author of the fictitious anti-Trump “dossier” that was funded by Clinton’s campaign and Democrats. That document, together with
many other unfounded accusations, would be exploited in a malicious attempt to frame Trump for unidentified crimes he did not commit.
The genesis of the new investigation will be explained in greater detail in the next chapter. But within two weeks, Strzok was on a plane to London to mine intelligence information and sources there, including confidential informants. Armed with a new case that might damage or destroy the man he so openly loathed in his text messages, he seemed giddy with excitement at the prospect. In a message to Page on July 31, 2016, the day papers were signed at the FBI to officially launch the case against Trump, he compared the dismissed Clinton case to the burgeoning Trump case:
Damn this feels momentous. Because this matters. The other one did, too, but that was to ensure that we didn’t F something up. This matters because this MATTERS.65
That one text, more than any other, exemplifies the way the FBI’s personal and political opinions of Trump innervated the Bureau’s desire to pursue him, even in the absence of any plausible evidence that he had done something wrong. In her private testimony, Page admitted that at that point the FBI had had almost nothing to go on.66 Her lover, Strzok, didn’t care. He was determined to use the full force and power of the FBI to investigate Trump. No resource would be spared. More than nine months later, after the special counsel was appointed, Page confessed that evidence of “collusion” with Russia was still unproven. “We still couldn’t answer the question,” she said.67 Comey also confirmed that startling admission when he told Congress in private sessions that there had been almost no evidence of “collusion” when his investigation began and little had changed by the time he was fired and Mueller was appointed.68
But to Strzok and others at the FBI, only the Trump case really mattered. The Clinton case, by comparison, didn’t. This is hard to comprehend inasmuch as Clinton had actually jeopardized the nation’s security secrets by her flagrant mishandling of thousands of classified documents—materials that might have included military and economic secrets, terrorism, crime, energy security, and cybersecurity. Foreign powers likely gained that valuable information. There was overwhelming proof that Clinton had done so in violation of several felony laws. Nonetheless, Strzok seemed convinced that that somehow paled in comparison with his obsessive belief in a nonexistent plot that Trump had “colluded” with the Kremlin.
To some extent, it is understandable how Strzok and others never considered the Clinton “matter” a real and legitimate investigation. How could they? The decision was made well in advance that she would never face prosecution. But the Trump investigation was something that “MATTERS.” Fueled by partisan hostility, stopping Trump became their top priority. Covering their tracks after the wrongful exoneration of Clinton was all that mattered. The inspector general would later conclude that he “did not have confidence that Strzok’s decision to prioritize the Russia investigation . . . was free from bias.”69
When he testified before Congress, Horowitz averred that Strzok’s texts had “clearly showed a biased state of mind” and that that was “antithetical to the core values of the department and extremely serious.” He added, “I can’t imagine FBI agents even suggesting that they would use their powers to investigate any candidate for office.”70 But that was precisely what happened.
Strzok wasn’t just suggesting he could use his powers against Trump, he was vowing to do so. Having solved the Clinton conundrum by cleansing Comey’s statement, he was rewarded with a promotion as he took command of the Trump case. A week after it was formally launched, the two paramours exchanged a message that crystallized their intent to bring down Trump, whom they referred to as a “menace”:
PAGE: And maybe you’re meant to stay where you are because you’re meant to protect the country from that menace.
STRZOK: Thanks. And of course I’ll try and approach it that way. I just know it will be tough at times. I can protect our country at many levels, not sure if that helps.71
The newly empowered Strzok envisioned himself as the FBI’s superagent who would “protect” the country from a dangerous and harmful Trump presidency at all costs. In their private interviews with Congress, Strzok brazenly denied that their reference to “menace” had meant Trump. Page, the one who had employed the word in her text, was more forthright. She admitted they had been conversing about Trump. He was the perceived menace.
Two days later, Page became distressed at Trump’s rising status in the polls and precipitated another text exchange about the possibility that their favored candidate, Clinton, might lose her bid to become president:
PAGE: He’s not ever going to become president, right? Right?!
STRZOK: No. No he’s not. We’ll stop it.72
Strzok was now the lead FBI agent in charge of the one-week-old Trump-Russia “collusion” investigation. When asked about what he had meant, he told Congress that he did “not recall” composing the infamous text vowing to stop Trump from being elected president.73 But then he tendered this explanation: “What I can tell you is that text in no way suggested that I or the FBI would take any action to influence the candidacy.” That was a remarkably dexterous justification for something he did not remember doing. When confronted with dozens of other messages extolling Clinton and disparaging Trump, Strzok had the temerity to say, “I do not have bias.” Later, he claimed, “Those text messages are not indicative of bias.”74
No one could read through the multitude of incendiary Strzok-Page messages without recognizing their strident political agenda and personal bias against the very man they were investigating.
In those texts we see the mind-set that led to the greatest mass delusion in American political history. Without any factual basis, without anything more than a perverted kind of wishful thinking, two people who should have known better decided that only a vast international criminal conspiracy could have led to President Trump’s election.
Consider the cryptic text of this August 15 message to Page just two weeks after Strzok signed papers formally launching the probe:
STRZOK: I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office that there’s no way he gets elected—but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.75
“Andy” was Andrew McCabe, the deputy director of the FBI. He, too, suffered an acute bout of memory loss and claimed he had no recollection of the meeting in his office.76 Page, on the other hand, was more scrupulous and candid. The “insurance policy,” she confirmed, was the FBI’s then-secret Russian “collusion” investigation of Trump.77 Under their plan, it would be quietly investigated by the Bureau but held in abeyance unless and until the “unlikely” event occurred—the election of Trump. That was especially devious, since she admitted that there was a “paucity” of evidence, meaning the Bureau had almost nothing at all.78
In truth, there wasn’t even sufficient evidence to open an investigation under FBI guidelines, as will be explained later.79 One was launched anyway. At the time, the phony Steele “dossier” was about all the agents had to go on. It was utterly unverified and suspect on its face. But that didn’t seem to matter, because the FBI assumed that Trump would never win. If he defied all expectations and prevailed on election day, it would then kick its probe into overdrive. The spurious allegation that Trump was a Russian asset would be pursued with vigor. In the minds of officials there, Trump was a threat only if he became president. The chimera of “collusion” might then be used against him to undo his presidency. It was the FBI’s version of an “insurance policy” against the risk of Trump.
Numerous texts between Strzok and Page show a stunning hostility toward the man they were investigating. They called him “awful,” “loathsome,” a “disaster, a “f***ing idiot,” an “enormous do*che,” and other disparaging names that were laced with incandescent profanity. Republican supporters were smugly branded as “retarded,” “the crazies,” and “ignorant hillbillies” who “SMELL.”80 Once Trump as
sumed office, Strzok wrote that his investigation of the president could be used to impeach him.81 Strzok and Page used FBI-issued phones to exchange more than 50,000 texts to each other, many of them while they were at work. Those toxic rants underscored an abiding enmity toward Trump that poisoned any chance that the FBI’s investigation would be neutral, objective, and fair. Attorney General William Barr agreed:
Well it’s hard to read some of the texts and not feel that there was gross bias at work and they’re appalling. . . . Those were appalling. And on their face they were very damning and I think if the shoe was on the other foot we could be hearing a lot about it.82
Just as Strzok and Page played a pivotal role in driving the “collusion” case against Trump, they were also a driving force in clearing Clinton. Their text missives were replete with adoring compliments of the Democratic candidate, lauding her accomplishments and predicting how she would coast to victory in the election.83 Just two weeks after the FBI exonerated Clinton, Page was celebrating her nomination when she wrote, “Congrats on a woman nominated for President in a major party! About damn time! Many, many more returns of the day!” Later, she warned, “We do not want this election stolen from us.”84
That text shows how just how deeply invested the FBI was in helping Clinton evade prosecution. Comey, Strzok, Page, and others had worked hard to bury evidence and shield her from legal jeopardy. They did not want an outsider like Trump to sabotage their labors by “stealing” the election from them. They had a greater attachment to their own power than to the public good. Trump was a threat to them.
In the summer of 2016, the FBI officials who had overseen both cases assumed that Clinton would win the presidency, and their actions were dictated accordingly. However, on September 26, 2016, a communication from a New York FBI agent to Washington headquarters threatened to derail that goal. Hundreds of thousands of emails had been discovered on the laptop of former representative Anthony Weiner, who was married to Clinton’s close aide Huma Abedin.
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