House Democrats are accusing their Republican colleagues of leaking information to “fabricate conspiracy theories” in order to protect President Trump.
The accusation comes after Trump complained on Twitter that the Justice Department and FBI are doing “nothing” in response to a newly revealed text message from former FBI official Peter Strzok about a “media leak strategy” while he was part of the bureau’s Russia investigation.
Trump’s tweet referred to a letter from Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., sent Monday to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Meadows’ letter raised “grave concerns regarding an apparent systemic culture of media leaking by high-ranking officials at the FBI and DOJ related to ongoing investigations” after more text messages between Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page were given to Congress.
But Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, say the texts weren’t talking about how to leak damaging information to the press. Instead, they say the messages show that Strzok and Page were discussing “whether the Justice Department should change its regulations to stop leaks to the media.”
They also said the decision by Republicans to leak that memo was designed only to help Trump.
“We don’t know how many times Republicans will try this same trick — or how many times President Trump will take advantage of them — but they need to start fulfilling their constitutional duty to conduct credible oversight of the Executive Branch rather than acting as the President’s personal defense counsel,” said Cummings and Nadler in a statement.
Strzok’s lawyer Aitan Goelman said in a statement Tuesday that the term “media leak strategy” refers to a department-wide initiative to detect and stop aides sharing information with the media.
After the April 2017 message was sent, it was reported that former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page had been surveilled by the FBI ahead of the 2016 election. Trump and his congressional allies have seized on the Page warrant, saying it relied too heavily on information in the unverified Trump-Russia dossier.
The Washington Examiner has not seen the text messages in question, but according to Cummings and Nadler, Strzok texted Page that same day: “DoJ getting all political and about to blow […] up the media leak regs and turn this into a circus.”
Strzok said they wanted to to talk to their superiors — then-FBI Director James Comey and then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe — about the media leaks policy. He wrote to Page, “if they are going to try to blow up the regs we need to get that to andy and d soonest.”
Strzok was fired from the FBI last month, and Page — with whom he was having an extramarital affair, resigned in May.
In a new letter Tuesday, Meadows said new texts suggest senior officials at the Justice Department and FBI “communicated with other news outlets beyond the Washington Post, as well.”
Meadows pointed to a message later on April 22, 2017, in which Strzok tells Page: “article is out! Well done, Page.” On Monday, Meadows said he believed that message came more than a week earlier, and indicated that it may be related to their media leak strategy.
Cummings and Nadler say that message is not about the two articles about Page published days earlier, but rather a New York Times profile on Comey published that day.
UPDATE: Today we sent an updated letter to DAG Rosenstein, including a newly discovered text + new resulting timeline:
4/12/17: Strzok texts Lisa Page two articles are coming about “her namesake” (Carter Page)
4/22/17: Strzok tells Page: “article is out!” and “Well done, Page” pic.twitter.com/9af9BvbjM3
— Mark Meadows (@RepMarkMeadows) September 11, 2018
