Former FBI agent Peter Strzok questioned the need for U.S. Attorney John Durham’s criminal inquiry into the origins of the Russia investigation.
In the midst of a book tour, Strzok, who played a key role in opening the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation that was later spun into Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation, appeared for an interview on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports on Thursday and said he can’t see “see any basis” for the so-called “investigation into the investigators.”
“Well, look, I know that I haven’t done anything wrong, let alone illegal. Nor had anybody else that I worked with around the senior leadership, around the team in 2016, so I’m not quite sure why his investigation is still continuing, because I just don’t see any basis for it,” he said.
Strzok, who was fired from the bureau in August 2018 after anti-Trump text messages he exchanged with an FBI lawyer came to light, went on to reference Nora Dannehy, a prosecutor who had been working with Durham before resigning from the Justice Department last week. Unnamed sources told the Hartford Courier, which broke the story, that her decision to leave her job was in part due to a fear that political pressure could force them into producing a report before the November election, but her farewell email to colleagues did not mention it.
“I’m certainly concerned,” Strzok said. “While he has a reputation of being a very objective fact-finder, when I see things like his primary deputy that he worked with for decades on really complex investigations, resigning out of, if you believe the reporting in the Hartford Courant, out of a belief that the process had become politicized, that their work had been rushed for a political agenda, that gives me a lot of concern that something is coming that is not based on fact and not based on any sort of objective investigation but rather something designed to be political in nature.”
“And if it’s bad enough that this career attorney who has just nothing but a laudable service record feels compelled to resign, that gives me a lot of concern,” he added.
Durham was appointed by Attorney General William Barr in the spring of 2019 to review the conduct of law enforcement and intelligence officials during the Russia investigation.
A Justice Department watchdog report released in December found the FBI’s counterintelligence into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia was properly predicated, but also criticized the bureau for 17 “significant errors or omissions” in its applications for warrants to wiretap a former Trump campaign adviser.
Still, critics warn that Durham’s inquiry, which so far has led to one guilty plea by a former FBI lawyer, will be used by Barr for an “October surprise” that could disrupt the 2020 election.
