The FBI’s Peter Strzok requested in the summer of 2017 that he retain his security clearance after being added to special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, according to emails published by conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch on Tuesday.

Strzok has become the center of a heated debate in Washington about the integrity of the Justice Department and FBI over text messages he sent to a colleague that display a bias against President Trump. Obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in partially redacted form, an email he sent on July 13, 2017 to FBI officials asked that he keep all the authorities he held as a deputy assistant director in the counterintelligence division.