Washington Free Beacon staff writer Elizabeth Harrington said on Friday that a New York Times report saying President Donald Trump considered firing special counsel Robert Mueller in June is being used to distract from the discovery of controversial text messages between FBI officials.
During an interview with Fox News, Harrington said it was curious timing that the development that Trump considered firing Mueller months ago came out just two hours after lost text messages were leaked by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa).
The released messages have clearly shown top FBI official Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page supported Clinton and strongly opposed a Trump presidency. Strzok worked on the investigation into former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails, and was initially on the investigation into Russian collusion in the 2016 presidential elections.
The official was removed from the investigation by Mueller once he became aware of the text messages that revealed potential bias. Page had already moved on to another area of the bureau.
"Here you have the top agent who had a hand in this Hillary investigation, and then also was brought into the Trump-Mueller probe, and he was completely biased against Trump. We've seen it and he was fired from it," Harrington said of Strzok. "Just as all the text messages are coming out to expose that, now what is the media jumping onto? A six-month-old story which they already had practically reported that Trump considered firing Mueller. But the fact is, he didn't fire Mueller."
Harrington also mentioned the text messages have drawn questions about the entire basis of the investigation into Russian collusion, and about Strzok's influence in the Clinton email investigation. Strzok is reported to have changed the language in former FBI Director James Comey's speech exonerating Clinton. Rather than refer to Clinton's behavior as "grossly negligent," Strzok changed it to "extremely careless."
In one text message revealed by Grassley, Page said, "One more thing: she might be our next president. The last thing you need us going in there loaded for bear. You think she’s going to remember or care that it was more doj than fbi?"
"Agreed," Strzok responded.