Former Rep. Trey Gowdy said fired FBI agent Peter Strzok may very likely be a target of U.S. Attorney John Durham’s inquiry into the Russia investigation.
After Attorney General William Barr told Fox News last week “some” of the people his handpicked federal prosecutor is scrutinizing would be familiar to the public, Gowdy surmised Strzok was one of them.
“Keep in mind. Peter Strzok, that I think is now a household name, has his fingerprints on every aspect of this,” Gowdy said on Fox News on Wednesday.
Gowdy, a former federal prosecutor who served as a Republican congressman from South Carolina, mapped out Strzok’s integral role throughout investigations underlying the 2016 election.
“From initiating it in the summer of 2016 to the Hillary Clinton investigation to [special counsel Robert] Mueller to interviewing Michael Flynn,” he said. “So, Peter Strzok would be a name that I would listen for as Durham begins to wind up his work.”
Strzok took part in the Russia and Hillary Clinton email investigations. He authored the “opening electronic communication” that initiated the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign. After DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz uncovered anti-Trump text messages between Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page, Republicans accused them of being part of a plot to undermine Trump.
Strzok was fired in August 2018 and a year later filed a wrongful termination lawsuit. In the face of repeated insults by President Trump, Strzok warned in February that he will “have a great deal more to say about the president’s attacks on those with responsibility for holding him accountable.”
Barr said last week he was “very troubled” by what Durham has brought to his attention so far.
The attorney general appointed Durham, the top federal prosecutor in Connecticut, to examine misconduct by law enforcement and intelligence officials over the course of the Russia investigation. Two other U.S. attorneys have joined the effort, which Democrats say appears to be a politically motivated scheme to relitigate the Russia investigation, bolstered by declassifications by former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell.
Documents declassified in April indicate Strzok abruptly stopped the FBI from closing its investigation into retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn in early January 2017 after uncovering “no derogatory information” on the incoming national security adviser.
“We give law enforcement and our intelligence community these awesome powers that no one else has: the power to indict and arrest and surveil and read emails. And all he [Barr] is asking in return is that you be a good steward and that there be a factual predicate when you investigate, whether it’s a potential president or your neighbor next door,” Gowdy said.
“When you give power to someone, it is not illegitimate to say, ‘Were you a good steward of those powers?'” he said.
