Peter Strzok: FBI Let Me Decide Which Texts I Thought Were ‘Relevant’ to Hand Over to IG

FBI agent Peter Strzok testified Thursday before the U.S. House that the Office of the Inspector General allowed him to decide which of his text messages with former FBI lawyer Lisa Page he would turn over to investigators — and which he would withhold.

The text messages are central to the question over whether the FBI was motivated by political bias in recommending against the prosecution of Hillary Clinton, and pursuing as-yet-unproven claims of Russian collusion with President Donald Trump.

In one text message, Strzok vowed to Page that the FBI would “stop” Trump from becoming president. Other text messages discussed impeaching Trump. On several occasions, Strzok disparaged Trump supporters.

Yet there may have been other texts.

Stroke admitted to House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) that he had not, in fact, turned over all of his text messages to the Inspector General, and that he had been allowed to determine which ones had “material that was relevant to FBI business”..

During the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails, it emerged that she and her attorneys had been permitted to go through the emails on her server and determine which were work-related and had to be turned over to the government after she left. They were allowed to do so, even though some of the emails contained classified materials, and her attorneys lacked the necessary security clearance to see them. The emails on Clinton’s server were subsequently destroyed, as were other devices containing the emails.

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[Related: Peter Strzok Refuses to Hand Over Texts to Congress]