President Trump said he is “amazed” Peter Strzok is still working at the FBI and said he “should have been fired a long time ago,” a day after a report unearthed text messages showing him promising to “stop” a Trump presidency.
“I am amazed that Peter Strzok is still at the FBI, and so is everybody else that read that report. And I’m not even talking about the report,” Trump told reporters outside the White House on Friday. “I’m talking about long before the report. Peter Strzok should have been fired a long time ago. And others should have been fired.”
Recommended Stories
Trump’s comments about Strzok come after the release Thursday of a highly anticipated report from the Justice Department’s internal watchdog, which detailed the missteps from the FBI and the Justice Department during the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.
The report revealed new text messages exchanged by Strzok and then-FBI lawyer Lisa Page, who had a romantic relationship, and criticized the two for their derogatory messages about Trump.
Page left her post at the FBI in May.
“[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” Page said in a message to Strzok in August 2016.
“No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it,” Strzok replied.
The inspector general said information regarding five FBI employees who sent politically charged messages were referred “to the FBI for its handling and consideration of whether the messages sent by the five employees … violates the FBI’s Offense Code of Conduct.”
