Traitor or Hero
I spent yesterday with Peter Strzok and Members of Congress. Yes, I did clean the awning on the camper, buy parts for my Jeep, and run some errands; but I watched or listened to Strzok’s questioning through most of ten hours. The neighborhood got to listen too.
What was the result of all of the questioning, showboating, insults, and posturing? Either Strzok is a traitor, attempting to stage a coup to prevent Donald Trump from becoming President, or Strzok is a flawed hero, fighting to prevent Russian influence in our elections. There isn’t really any middle ground.
Peter Strzok was FBI Deputy Assistant Director for Counter-Intelligence. To use intelligence specialist Malcolm Nance’s description: “Strzok was our foremost spy-catcher.” For those who watched the series “The Americans,” Strzok led the FBI investigation that broke that Russian spy ring. He was the front line leader of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server, and, when information was found showing Russian intervention in the 2016 Presidential election, he led that as well.
It might seem like a lot of responsibility for one man, but as Strzok said yesterday, he had hundreds of counter-intelligence cases on his desk, and he was managing multiple levels of the agency in dealing with them. He was one of our best.
And clearly, Strzok was a man of strong political views. We know that because he was having an affair with Lisa Page, a Department of Justice attorney working on some of the same cases. Since they were both married to others, they kept their communication secret by using their DOJ phones to talk. Oh, and they sent texts, thousands and thousands of texts.
In those texts were insults towards Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, but the worst were directed toward Donald Trump. And some of those texts made it sound like Strzok could actually do something to alter the election results.
In looking back at my texts the months before the election, it is very possible that I would have sent a text that said: “we can stop Trump,” or “what are you doing to stop Trump.” In context it would be about going door to door for Clinton, but out of context, what could it sound like?
Strzok took the “traitor” scenario apart with a simple fact: if he wanted to stop the Trump candidacy, he could have leaked the fact of the investigation to the media before the election. What happened to Clinton, with the final Comey letter killing the momentum of her campaign in the last ten days, could have happened to Trump. Strzok didn’t do that, he said it never crossed his mind.
Strzok and Page not only cheated on their spouses, but they left a record that became public. It was a stupid mistake by smart people. It has opened the door for the Republican House Members to make Strzok the bête noire who started the Russia investigation out of his animus for Trump. Their argument returns to the “fruit of the poisonous tree” defense: that since Strzok started the investigation out of “bias,” then the entire effort is illegitimate.
Strzok responded by admitting the obvious: he didn’t want Donald Trump to become President. He then stated, that he did what we hope every FBI Agent can do, leave their personal bias at the door, and go into the office and do their job without fear or favor. After ten hours of testimony, most Republicans didn’t believe him, and most Democrats did.
IF, for a moment, we can take Strzok at his word, then what would this investigation look like? FBI and DOJ procedures call for investigations to be secret until final. This way the prosecutors can get evidence without “tainting” it with media attention, and the innocent don’t get their reputations smeared. When the prosecutors bring their case, they do it in the court, not in the media. That’s not what happened with the Clinton email server investigation. As one Democratic Congresswoman said, the FBI didn’t leak the Trump investigation, but they were so afraid of leaks that they cost Hillary the election.
But so far the Mueller investigation is doing exactly that. There hasn’t been a leak; the only information from Mueller has been in Court documents. Leaks and rumors about what Mueller is doing comes mostly from defense attorneys, or speculation in the media. The Republican claim that there “…is no evidence…” is mostly true – Mueller is holding the evidence until he is ready to go to Court. Just like we should expect him to do.
So what about Peter Strzok? He made a huge mistake. But he came across as a dedicated agent, who stood between America and our enemies. His mistake cost him his career, but the loss is both his and ours.
I watched advertising executive Donnie Deutsch this morning and he made a good point about today’s America. He noted that those who support the Mueller investigation will think that Democrats “won” the hearings yesterday, and Trump supporters will think Republicans “won.” Not many minds changed. A sign of the times –
I don’t think I watched 10 minutes, much less 10 hours of it. But the few minutes, & the coverage of it that I saw, were disgusting. Congress thoroughly embarrassed itself. The whole thing was detestable to watch, all the way around, from what I saw. I wanted to take a shower.
What’s the line – if you like sausage don’t watch them make it!! It was ugly but as a former parliamentarian some of it was fascinating.