Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff (Calif.) said Sunday that he does not know whether FBI agent Peter Strzok should still work at the bureau, but called his behavior "completely inappropriate."
"Do you think Peter Strzok should still be with the FBI at this point?" NBC host Chuck Todd asked Schiff on "Meet the Press."
"I don't know," Schiff responded. "I imagine that the Office of Professional Responsibility will have to make that decision."
"Certainly these text messages are troubling," the congressman continued. "The fact that they were on a work email, the fact that they were co-mingled with emails discussing business, all that's problematic. Again, you know, the IG [Inspector General] concluded that none of this affected decision-making, but, nonetheless, that was completely inappropriate."
Schiff was referring to a report that the Justice Department's inspector general released this week on the FBI's handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails. The report discussed controversial text messages between FBI investigator Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page. In one text message, Strzok said "we'll stop" Donald Trump from becoming president and called Trump's supporters "retarded." The IG report concluded, however, that there was no evidence "to connect the political views expressed in these messages to the specific investigative decisions."
Trump called the text messages "vicious" and wondered how Strzok still has a job at the FBI.
"I don't know how Peter Strzok is working there anymore," Trump said.
The IG report also concluded that former FBI Director Jame Comey's handling of the Clinton investigation damaged the bureau's image of being impartial and not motivated by politics. This conclusion is similar to a memo that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein wrote in which he outlined how Comey's actions damaged the bureau.
Trump has cited Comey's actions during the investigation as one of the reasons why he fired the former director.