Judicial Watch Sues DOJ Over ‘Missing’ Strzok-Page Text Messages Deleted by Mueller Special Counsel

Judicial Watch announced that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice for text message records of former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page believed to be in the possession of the office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller and for other special counsel communications with the FBI relating to Strzok and Page (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:19-cv-02693)).

The text messages in question would have been sent and received on Justice Department issued iPhones assigned to Strzok and Page during their respective assignments to the Special Counsel’s Office and should have been recovered, reviewed and preserved by the Special Counsel Office before the phones were sent back to the Justice Department Justice Management Division for reassignment.

“The Justice Department IG was unable to recover any text messages from Strzok’s and Page’s phones because the compromised Mueller operation wiped them,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Judicial Watch is skeptical that these texts are really gone, and the DOJ’s stonewalling suggests we are right to be suspicious.”

In February 2019, DOJ records showed that former FBI General Counsel James Baker discussed the investigation of Clinton-related emails on Anthony Weiner’s laptop with Clinton’s lawyer David Kendall. Baker then forwarded the conversation to his FBI colleagues. The documents also further describe a previously reported quid pro quo from the Obama State Department offering the FBI more legal attaché positions if it would downgrade a redaction in an email found during the Clinton email investigation “from classified to something else.”

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