Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., sparred with CNN host Chris Cuomo on Wednesday, after the lawmaker claimed text messages between FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page that are now missing were the “greatest coincidence since the immaculate conception.”
Gaetz maintained that he made the point to demonstrate the missing texts were an “absurd coincidence” and told Cuomo that the immaculate conception was a religious reference to describe how Jesus Christ was born.
But Cuomo responded that the immaculate conception concerned Mary, Jesus’ mother.
“It was Mary’s conception,” Cuomo said. “It was the mother’s conception without original sin. It was not the conception of Jesus.”
Chris Cuomo takes GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz to task over his claim that FBI’s explanation of missing texts would be the “greatest coincidence since the immaculate conception” https://t.co/LVL818aUYO
— CNN Newsroom (@CNNnewsroom) January 25, 2018
Earlier this month, the Justice Department produced 384 pages of text messages that were sent between the two officials, but the FBI said that text messages sent between Dec. 14, 2016, and May 17, 2017, were lost due to “misconfiguration issues.”
The Justice Department has begun to retrieve some of the texts said to be unpreserved, according to Fox News.
Strzok was a top FBI counterintelligence agent who was part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia inquiry team prior to being demoted after it was revealed that he and Page exchanged text messages that were critical of Trump. He was then moved to a human resources position. Page also was previously a member of the special counsel team
Strzok was also a lead investigator in the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s unauthorized private email server.
The five-month period in which the texts went missing includes the presidential transition period up to when Mueller was chosen to be special counsel.
