Rep. Liz Cheney said Sunday anti-Trump text messages exchanged between then-FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page reminded her of a coup and suggested it could be treason.
“I think what is really crucially important to remember here is that you had Strzok and Page who were in charge of launching this investigation and they were saying things like, ‘We must stop this president, we need an insurance policy against this president,’” the Wyoming Republican said during an interview with ABC News’ “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”
“That in my view when you have people that are in the highest echelons of the law enforcement of this nation saying things like that, that sounds an awful lot like a coup and it could well be treason.”
The U.S. Constitution defines treason as assisting U.S. enemies or “levying war” against the U.S.
Cheney, who is the Republican Conference chairwoman and the third-ranking House GOP lawmaker, referred to a key criticism of Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Strzok and Page have long been at the center of some Republicans’ “investigate the investigators” strategy.
Attorney General William Barr this month ordered a federal prosecutor to investigate the origins of the Russia investigation. The inquiry is the third known federal investigation trying to uncover information about the start of the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia that later turned into special counsel Robert Mueller’s federal Russia investigation.
Strzok was a lead investigator in the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s unauthorized private email server and also worked on special counsel Mueller’s investigation when James Comey was FBI director.
He and Page, who were involved in an extramarital affair, attracted scrutiny after it was revealed in December 2017 that the two exchanged text messages critical of Trump.
In an August 2016 message to Page, Strzok said: “I want to believe the path you threw out in [former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s] office — that there’s no way he gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take the risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”
Strzok told lawmakers that the text messages were related to a conversation about how much they should pursue unearthing potential connections between the Trump campaign and Russia — since they thought it was unlikely Trump would be elected.
Strzok was removed from the Mueller inquiry upon the discovery of the text messages and was fired in August 2018. Page resigned from her post in May 2018.
Cheney, 52, on Sunday, said outstanding questions remain about the episode.
“And I think that we need to know more, we need to know what was Jim Comey’s role in all of this? These people reported to him, Andy McCabe reported to him, what was Comey’s role in that?” said Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney. “And that is what the attorney general is going to be focused on.”
Cheney’s comments did not sit with with a prominent former federal prosecutor, Preet Bharara, who was U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York for the bulk of Barack Obama’s presidency and was then fired by Trump.
“Elected officials keep making casual, ignorant, idiotic accusations of ‘treason.’ Trump does it. Just saw Liz Cheney do it. Read the Constitution and knock it the hell off,” Bharara tweeted Sunday.
