FBI loses texts from anti-Trump agent covering the exact period of greatest importance
Nothing to see here! The FBI revealed yesterday that it has lost texts between anti-Trump agent Peter Strzok and anti-Trump FBI lawyer Lisa Page for the five month period just prior to the beginnings of the Mueller investigation.
Their excuse?
“The Department wants to bring to your attention that the FBI’s technical system for retaining text messages sent and received on FBI mobile devices failed to preserve text messages for Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page,” said the letter, signed by assistant attorney general for legislative affairs Stephen Boyd.
Citing “misconfiguration issues related to rollouts, provisioning, and software upgrades that conflicted with the FBI’s collection capabilities,” Boyd explained that “data that should have been automatically collected and retained for long-term storage and retrieval was not collected.”
The missing time period, from December 14, 2016 and May 17, 2017, covers precisely the five months leading up to the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel, which happened (surprise!) on May 17.
By any standards of common morality, this should result at a minimum in the firing of numerous people at the FBI, immediately. It should also result in an aggressive investigation by the executive branch to see if these texts were purposely destroyed.
We however do not live in a time where any standards of common morality apply. Just as the IRS agents and the head of the IRS were allowed to lie and destroy evidence to obstruct Congress, with no consequences, I do not expect to see the Trump administration do anything significant to punish anyone here.
Nothing to see here! The FBI revealed yesterday that it has lost texts between anti-Trump agent Peter Strzok and anti-Trump FBI lawyer Lisa Page for the five month period just prior to the beginnings of the Mueller investigation.
Their excuse?
“The Department wants to bring to your attention that the FBI’s technical system for retaining text messages sent and received on FBI mobile devices failed to preserve text messages for Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page,” said the letter, signed by assistant attorney general for legislative affairs Stephen Boyd.
Citing “misconfiguration issues related to rollouts, provisioning, and software upgrades that conflicted with the FBI’s collection capabilities,” Boyd explained that “data that should have been automatically collected and retained for long-term storage and retrieval was not collected.”
The missing time period, from December 14, 2016 and May 17, 2017, covers precisely the five months leading up to the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel, which happened (surprise!) on May 17.
By any standards of common morality, this should result at a minimum in the firing of numerous people at the FBI, immediately. It should also result in an aggressive investigation by the executive branch to see if these texts were purposely destroyed.
We however do not live in a time where any standards of common morality apply. Just as the IRS agents and the head of the IRS were allowed to lie and destroy evidence to obstruct Congress, with no consequences, I do not expect to see the Trump administration do anything significant to punish anyone here.