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An unidentified FBI attorney assigned to the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election left that case after the Justice Department’s internal watchdog discovered instant messages that “included statements of hostility toward” then-candidate Donald Trump, including one stating "viva le resistance," according to a new report.

The highly anticipated report from the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General, released Thursday, disclosed text messages and instant messages sent on FBI devices by five FBI employees who were assigned to the Clinton email probe.

“We found that the conduct of these five FBI employees brought discredit to themselves, sowed doubt about the FBI’s handling of the midyear investigation, and impacted the reputation of the FBI,” the report said.


One unidentified lawyer, named in the report as “FBI Attorney 2,” worked in the FBI’s Office of General Counsel, National Security and Cyber Law Branch and was assigned to the Clinton email and Russia probes, as well as special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling.

But he left the special counsel’s team in late February 2018, the report stated, after the Office of the Inspector General provided the special counsel with instant messages that raised political issues, including Trump. Three exchanges identified by the inspector general “raised concerns of potential bias.”

One exchange was sent Oct. 28, 2016, the day then-FBI Director James Comey notified Congress the investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server had effectively been reopened.



The unidentified FBI attorney told two FBI employees, “I mean, I never really liked the Republic anyway.”

He told a third employee, “I’m clinging to small pockets of happiness in the dark time of the Republic’s destruction.”

The lawyer told the Office of the Inspector General that the messages reflected his “frustration” that the FBI “was essentially walking into a landmine in terms of injecting itself” into the presidential election.

The second exchange was sent Nov. 9, 2016, and involved another unnamed FBI employee not assigned to the Clinton probe.

The lawyer told the other employee then, “I am numb.”

The unidentified employee replied, “You promised me this wouldn’t happen. YOU PROMISED.”

The FBI attorney later said, “I am so stressed about what I could have done differently,” and said the FBI “broke the momentum” for Clinton.

In that exchange, the FBI employee called Trump voters “poor to middle class, uneducated, lazy POS that think he will magically grant them jobs for doing nothing.”

The FBI attorney replied, “I’m just devastated. I can’t wait until I can leave today and just shut off the world for the next four days.”

“I just can’t imagine the systematic disassembly of the progress we made over the last 8 years. ACA is gone. Who knows if the rhetoric about deporting people, walls, and crap is true,” he said in a later message, according to the report. “I honestly feel like there is going to be a lot more gun issues, too, the crazies won finally. This is the tea party on steroids. And the GOP is going to be lost, they have to deal with an incumbent in 4 years. We have to fight this again. Also Pence is stupid.”


He said it was difficult “not to feel like the FBI caused some of this. It was razor thin in some states.”

The lawyer lamented the fact that his “god damned name is all over the legal documents investigating his staff," which appears to be a reference to Trump.

The FBI attorney told the Office of the Inspector General of the exchange that the two were discussing personal feelings about the election, but said his “personal political feelings or beliefs … in no way impacted” his work on the Clinton email or Russia investigations.

The third exchange involving the unnamed FBI lawyer took place Nov. 22, 2016. In that discussion, which involved another attorney, the two remarked on the amount of money a member of the Trump campaign, who was the subject of an FBI investigation, had been paid.

The second attorney asked, “Is it making you rethink your commitment to the Trump administration?”

The FBI lawyer in question responded, “Hell no,” adding, “Viva le resistance.”

When asked by the inspector general’s office if the latter comment indicated he was “going to fight back” against Trump, the attorney said it was just “commentary” between two people “in a personal friendly capacity where she is just making a joke, and I’m responding.”

The FBI attorney said both he and the other lawyer were assigned to the Russia probe when the exchange took place and acknowledged “the perception issues that come from” the messages.

The inspector general noted in the report that the conduct in question from the FBI officials “cast a cloud over the” bureau's Clinton email investigation. The Justice Department’s watchdog, though, said there was no evidence that connected the political views expressed in the messages to the decisions related to the Clinton email probe.

New revelations show that senior FBI officials were committing precisely the same offenses for which they were investigating Hillary Clinton and President Donald Trump

Newly-released text messages show that FBI special agent Peter Strzok and attorney Lisa Page used personal devices for official government work and “gmailed” government information to one another using unsecured systems.

The activity would be fine if the duo worked in the private sector and they hadn’t been in charge of one of the most public investigations in FBI history, questioning Clinton for precisely the same thing.

Not only did the senior bureau officials send thousands of text messages to one another over a period of five months (which quite frankly begs the question, “Doesn’t anyone work anymore?") According to those texts, the lovers used personal Gmail email accounts to share government documents and information.

They also used personal devices and Apple iMessages to discuss their investigations.

The pair also discussed their advanced knowledge of news articles before they were published, which suggests that the FBI officials may have been complicit in media leaks.

In another twist of irony, Strzok and Page also strategized just how easy to go on Clinton in what they saw as the likely event that she would become president. Of course this is the very definition of collusion – the very thing for which they were investigating then-candidate Donald Trump.

Their actions should have been due cause to recuse themselves from the case or to be forcibly removed from the investigations.

However, blinded by its bias against then-candidate Trump, the FBI did nothing. In fact, the pair’s unethical communications went completely unnoticed by the bureau.

What’s worse, the FBI appears to have not initially captured or preserved the text messages; it was only this week that a Department of Justice watchdog reported to congress that his office had unearthed the messages.

Before the texts were rediscovered, the FBI was missing messages from several critical time periods: the day that the Trump dossier prepared by British spy Christopher Steele was published by BuzzFeed; the day that then-FBI Director James Comey was fired by Trump; the day that Strzok interviewed Gen. Michael Flynn on Jan. 24, 2017; and the final day of the missing text messages — May 17, 2017 — the day that Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel of the FBI’s Russia investigation. Color me suspicious but those are kind of important time periods during which the American people ought to see the communiques of the FBI officials involved.

After all, it was Page who had been assigned as a top lawyer to Mueller’s special counsel office for the Russia investigation — a post from which she has since (rightfully) been removed.

In his own right, Strzok wasn’t just pushing papers around the FBI, either. He was the senior FBI official who signed the opening argument for the Russia investigation in July 2016, served as the second in command of the FBI’s counterintelligence division, and was the FBI agent that softened the language of the Comey memo regarding Clinton’s use of a private email server from ”grossly negligent” to “extremely careless.”

The fact that the pair was so biased is bad enough; however, the duo behaving so recklessly themselves is, in and of itself, alarming. It is grounds for both of their firings, yet both of them remain at the FBI collecting taxpayer-funded salaries and benefits.

Whatever the ending to the case of the missing text messages, one thing is now abundantly clear: Disgraceful hypocrisy at the FBI was at an all-time high during a time when integrity should have been.

Jen Kerns served as the spokeswoman for the California Republican Party. A two-time appointee of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, she went on to serve as spokeswoman and communications director for the victorious Prop. 8 campaign in California, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, Americans for Prosperity in California, and numerous rare successful Statewide races as a Republican press secretary.

Strzok, who worked on both the Clinton email and Russia probes, was escorted from the FBI on Tuesday, following a referral for further investigation from DOJ IG Michael Horowitz. The watchdog, as part of his Clinton case review, found that Strzok and four other FBI employees sent “hostile” anti-Trump messages on bureau devices.

The FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility is expected to further investigate the findings against the five FBI employees.

“A referral certainly is very serious and they will investigate the accusations if it’s serious enough,” retired FBI special agent and former national spokesman John Iannarelli told Fox News Thursday. “The accusations are a violation of FBI rules.”

Iannarelli explained that FBI employees are not allowed to use bureau devices for matters other than bureau business.

“As I like to say, every FBI agent has a political opinion, we’re just not allowed to express them,” Iannarelli said. “You’re supposed to keep to yourselves and you certainly can’t let it impact your work. What we see here are individuals who disregarded this.”

MYE, or “Midyear Exam,” was the code used in the FBI to refer to the Clinton probe.

The report noted that it was specifically concerned about text messages exchanged between FBI officials Strzok and Lisa Page that “potentially indicated or created the appearance that investigative decisions were impacted by bias or improper considerations.”

Horowitz ultimately found no evidence that the bias among the several FBI agents impacted prosecutorial decisions in the Clinton email probe.

Strzok and Page, who were romantically involved, both served for a short period of time on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation team. Strzok was reassigned [within the FBI, to personnel] following the revelations of his anti-Trump texts. Page resigned last month. [Before the final IG report was released.]

But while many of those texts were made public in late 2017, the IG report revealed a new one in which Strzok vowed to "stop" Trump from becoming president -- and made clear that as many as five total FBI employees exchanged politically charged messages.

Last week’s inspector general report largely dealt with the Justice Department and FBI’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server but uncovered numerous messages that “appeared to mix political opinion with discussions about the MYE investigation.”

MYE, or “Midyear Exam,” was the code used in the FBI to refer to the Clinton probe.

The report noted that it was specifically concerned about text messages exchanged between FBI officials Strzok and Lisa Page that “potentially indicated or created the appearance that investigative decisions were impacted by bias or improper considerations.”

Horowitz ultimately found no evidence that the bias among the several FBI agents impacted prosecutorial decisions in the Clinton email probe.

Strzok and Page, who were romantically involved, both served for a short period of time on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation team. Strzok was reassigned following the revelations of his anti-Trump texts. Page resigned last month.

But while many of those texts were made public in late 2017, the IG report revealed a new one in which Strzok vowed to "stop" Trump from becoming president -- and made clear that as many as five total FBI employees exchanged politically charged messages.

The text messages and instant messages sent by these employees included statements of hostility toward then candidate Trump and statements of support for candidate Clinton," the report said.

The report also revealed instant messages between unnamed agents, which House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows suggested at a public hearing could be FBI agents Kevin Clinesmith and Sally Moyer—though neither Horowitz nor the FBI would comment on the accuracy of that speculation.

A spokesman for Meadows did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment on why Meadows cited those names.

If Strzok and others are pursued in connection with this report, Iannarelli said the FBI has an “established series of penalties,” with potential punishment for agents ranging from “censure, policing your file, to cutting off from work without pay until termination.”

“One violation is ‘lack of candor,’ during an investigation interview. That is grounds for termination and there is no exception to that,” Iannarelli said.

Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe was fired in March by Attorney General Jeff Sessions over his lack of candor when interviewed regarding an unauthorized leak of a self-serving story to the media. McCabe allegedly lied to FBI investigators and his boss, former FBI Director James Comey, though McCabe has pushed back on those findings.

Iannarelli told Fox News that Strzok’s forcible exit from the bureau was a “rare occurrence,” and that he has seen a number of FBI employees who were eventually terminated, but continued performing functions until OPR decisions were made.

“To be escorted out of the building before the OPR [Office of Professional Responsibility, FBI's internal affairs investigators]investigation is completed and a decision is rendered is fairly extraordinary,” Iannarelli said.

One former senior Justice Department official speculated on Thursday that Strzok might also be implicated in a separate inspector general’s review on the start of the Russia investigation.

“My take is that it is possible that escorting him out meant that the inspector general’s Russia investigation is going to be brutal for him,” the former official told Fox News. “If you’re the subject or mentioned by name in an OIG report, they typically show you the parts of the report that relate to you.”

The official added: “At the end of the day, one of the drafts of the next inspector general report is making its way around and the findings are alarming to the FBI.”

Horowitz on Tuesday confirmed that he is investigating whether Strzok’s anti-Trump bias factored into the launch of the FBI’s Russia investigation.

During testimony on Capitol Hill Tuesday, Horowitz acknowledged that Strzok’s text messages “clearly shows a biased state of mind.”


IG CONFIRMS HE IS REVIEWING WHETHER STRZOK'S ANTI-TRUMP BIAS IMPACTED LAUNCH OF RUSSIA PROBE


It was revealed earlier this year that Horowitz’s office was investigating allegations of government surveillance abuse tied to the start of the Russia probe. But Horowitz’s testimony this week, meant to answer questions about the conclusion of the Clinton case review, revealed some of the specifics involved in the ongoing Russia case review, including the Strzok texts.

“I can’t imagine FBI agents even suggesting that they would use their powers to investigate any candidate for office,” Horowitz said Tuesday. “I thought this was completely antithetical to the core values of the department and extremely serious.”

The former official also speculated Strzok’s escort out of the building could be related to a loss of security clearance, or even [Strzok's escort out being related to] the findings of personal texts or emails from Strzok and Page that the inspector general was not able to obtain.

But regardless of the basis for Strzok’s exit, Iannarelli told Fox News that FBI rank-and-file are “shaking their heads.”

“This is such an aberration of what the FBI stands for,” Iannarelli told Fox News. “You have a couple of people who have done these things and draw the spotlight and attention away from all of the good agents and good work being done at the FBI.”

Strzok's attorney did not respond to Fox News' request for comment but in a statement issued in response to his removal from the office earlier this week said Strzok wants to continue to serve.

"Pete has steadfastly played by the rules and respected the process, and yet he continues to be the target of unfounded personal attacks, political games and inappropriate information leaks," attorney Aitan Goelman said. "All of this seriously calls into question the impartiality of the disciplinary process, which now appears tainted by political influence. Instead of publicly calling for a long-serving FBI agent to be summarily fired, politicians should allow the disciplinary process to play out free from political pressure.

"Despite being put through a highly questionable process, Pete has complied with every FBI procedure, including being escorted from the building as part of the ongoing internal proceedings."

The report, separately, found instances of FBI employees who “improperly received benefits from reporters, including tickets to sporting events, golfing outings, drinks and meals, and admittance to nonpublic social events."

Any consequences from those perks, however, might come later. Because the gifts were outside the scope of this report, Horowitz said the watchdog "will separately report on those investigations as they are concluded."

Lol, guilty of not liking somebody isn't a crime. More indictments rolled out today that were obviously more important than the partisan shit show the GOP had earlier. I wonder which congressional candidate was talking with the GRU? The public deserves to know.

Oh as for your earlier speaking for America WB, your master has threatened violence at his rallies so many times that it's pretty fantastic that you only see it being the other side. For the record I don't condone violence. Neither Hillary or fat piece of shit should be above the law. If evidence rolls out either way on him he should be treated accordingly. And if Trump supporters get out of line break out the tear gas and rubber bullets.

Trump made a joke and said about a DNC heckler, "Get him out of here."
And plenty of others on the Democrat side have said ALMOST EXACTLY what Trump said, about wanting to smack someone who annoyed them. Or several times in Biden's case alone, wanting to take Trump out behind the gym. You keep manufacturing the same tired accusations.

And as I pointed out the last time you raised this allegation, the guy filing suit can't even name any injuries he received. Even if the guy actually hit the heckler at the Trump rally, Trump didn't authorize the guy to hit the jerk. If he actually did.

Florida Republicans play starring role in Russian hacking

The indictment is vague concerning the unnamed congressional campaign, saying only: “On or about August 15, 2016, the [Russian internet hacker] Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, received a request for stolen documents from a candidate for U.S. Congress. The Conspirators responded using the Guccifer 2.0 persona and sent the candidate stolen documents related to the candidate's opponent.”

At that point in the 2016 election cycle, first-time candidate Mast was embroiled in a six-way GOP primary, which he won Aug. 30 with 38 percent of the vote. He then defeated Democrat Randy Perkins in the general election.

Perry points out the campaign didn’t use some of the more vicious information it had against Perkins, and he said he was unaware of any hacking inquiries made by the campaign. He said he started after the primary and didn’t have contact with Mast’s former political consultant, Anthony Bustamante, who last year told reporters that he used hacked information from Guccifer 2.0.

“There’s no actual information whatsoever linked to us,” said Stewart, blaming Democrats for spreading the story for political advantage in the district, one of Florida’s few congressional swing seats.

“A: It’s speculation it was [contracted political consultant]Anthony [Bustamonte]; I have no idea if that’s the case,” Stewart said. “And B: if it was him, it was 100 percent not related to our campaign at all.”