Inside the FBI Life of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, as Told in Their Text Messages
Exchanges between agent and lawyer show dedication to bureau—but no hesitation to criticize colleagues and Trump
Del Quentin WilberUpdated Feb. 2, 2018 11:49 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON—In the summer of 2016, FBI Agent Peter Strzok had just wrapped up the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of
a private email server and was
embarking on a probe into Moscow’s interference in the presidential election. As he watched the Republican National Convention and scanned intelligence reports and news stories, he made clear how he felt about his new target:
“f*ck the cheating motherf*cking Russians,” he texted in late July. “b*stards. I hate them.”
“I think they’re probably the worst,” texted Mr. Strzok, who had spent years tracking Russian spies and was familiar with their tactics. “F*cking conniving cheating savages. At statecraft, athletics, you name it. I’m glad I’m on Team USA.”
The messages were sent to FBI lawyer Lisa Page, one of thousands turned over by the Justice Department to Congress on Jan. 19 as part of an internal inquiry into how the Federal Bureau of Investigation handled its investigation into Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page, who were in an extramarital affair at the time, have been accused of bias against President Donald Trump after some previously released emails showed their disdain for the president.
In the texts, provided to Congress and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, the pair’s distaste for Mr. Trump re-emerges.
After the 2016 election, Mr. Strzok wrote, “OMG I am so depressed.” Ms. Page replied, “I don’t know if I can eat. I am very nauseous.”
Republicans have said the FBI’s handling of the Clinton probe and the Russia investigation, as well as the criticism of Mr. Trump in the couple’s exchanges, indicate bias against the president and have suggested a conspiracy to undermine him.
Mr. Trump
said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal last month that he interpreted Mr. Strzok’s messages to Ms. Page as “treason.” Mr. Strzok’s attorney said at the time the president’s accusation was “beyond reckless.”
Texts critical of Mr. Trump represent a fraction of the roughly 7,000 messages, which stretch across 384 pages and show no evidence of a conspiracy against Mr. Trump. Rather, a broader look shows an unvarnished and complex picture of the lives of an FBI agent and lawyer who found themselves at the center of highly charged probes.
Former FBI Director James Comey was fired by President Trump in May.Photo: jonathan ernst/Reuters
They logged long hours and frequently worked on weekends. They seemed dedicated to their jobs but didn’t hesitate to chastise or criticize many others beyond Mr. Trump, including their colleagues and each other. In deeply personal office chatter, they come across as intense, ambitious and unsure of their standing in the bureau.
After serving as the lead agent on the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s server while she was secretary of state, Mr. Strzok was promoted to deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division.
A longtime spy-hunter, he was tasked with helping supervise the Russia probe. After Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel for the probe on May 17, Mr. Strzok joined his office as its top agent.
Yet, he was ambivalent about taking the job, even if Mr. Mueller’s investigation was one that was certain to end up “in the history books.”
Unsure the investigation would lead anywhere, Mr. Strzok worried that leaving the bureau might harm his chances of advancement, and was concerned he wouldn’t play a key role.
“I don’t know what I want, Lisa,” Mr. Strzok, 47 years old, wrote in a text message to Ms. Page, 38, on May 24. “I don’t want to be anything but the lead agent. And I think even that is going to be a far cry from the inner sanctum of what Bob decides.”
He served in the special counsel’s office about two months before Mr. Mueller learned in July about the disparaging texts and dismissed him. He has since been assigned to human resources at the FBI.
Ms. Page and Mr. Strzok couldn't be reached for comment.
The tranche of redacted texts—which deal with mostly work-related issues, while the set seen in December focused more heavily on politics—covers August 2015 through December 2016, then picks up again in May and June of last year. The Justice Department has blamed the gap on a technical error. The department’s inspector general said
it recently recovered those messages and is reviewing them.
Many of the texts reflect their day-to-day workplace trials. Mr. Strzok complained about a top prosecutor, whom Ms. Page agreed was “pompous.” She described another as arrogant. Mr. Strzok said that “I hate” the Justice Department, and dealing with it was “a wild pain in the ass.”
Mr. Strzok raised questions about the initiative of some colleagues, telling Ms. Page in April 2015 that the bureau or prosecutors “will puss out. If I got a quarter of the support [redacted] blindly gives his guys, we might, but we won’t.”
Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page showed in their exchanges dedication to their jobs and uncertainty over their standing in the bureau. Photo: jim lo scalzo/European Pressphoto Agency
He later confided he felt compelled to tell a colleague during a meeting that “I cannot overstate to you the sense of urgency about wanting to logically and effectively conclude this investigation,” an apparent reference to the Clinton probe.
Ms. Page worked in the FBI general counsel’s office and in the office of Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and was detailed briefly to Mr. Mueller’s office. With her proximity to bureau leaders, she sometimes helped transmit information on behalf of Mr. Strzok to executives.
“I’ll ask you, in front of the D,” she texted one day in May 2016, referring to the FBI director. “‘Pete, I apologize for putting you on the spot, but I know you shared with andy some of the comments you’ve been hearing from folks, I think it would be valuable for the D to know them.’ ”
When Mr. Strzok was unsure where a question was coming from in the FBI’s top ranks, he asked Ms. Page for help: “Your mission, Agent Page, should you choose to accept it…”
“Obviously,” she replied, “I’ll find out what I can tomorrow…”
Though he generally comes across as confident, Mr. Strzok harbored doubts about his abilities. In late June, as the interview with Mrs. Clinton neared, he said he was “spinning in my head about the case.”
The interview needs tweaking, he wrote, and reports “need a fine edit, the summaries need to be written, I need to see what I did wrong or forgot or put off and not do that again and I need to do background for the job application, combination of I’m perfect for the job and not good enough and not going to get it and and and.”
That same month, he suggested the FBI had missed the fact that some Clinton emails were marked with a “c,” meaning they contained classified information. “DOJ was very concerned about this,” he wrote, adding that “they’re worried, holy cow, if the fbi missed this, what else was missed. Which I get, because I had the same worry.”
An hour later that same June day, Ms. Page texted with more news about the Clinton probe: “oh jesus. Have something to tell you.” The FBI interview with Mrs. Clinton, she said, would happen on July 2.
As he was gearing up for that session, Mr. Strzok was also helping edit a statement that FBI Director James Comey would deliver July 5 explaining why he was recommending against charging Mrs. Clinton.
In that statement, Mr. Comey would say Mrs. Clinton had been “extremely careless” in handling classified information; Mr. Strzok urged changing the phrase in a draft from “grossly negligent,” according to people familiar with the matter.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa)
in November said the editing suggests the FBI was seeking to help Mrs. Clinton avoid legal trouble, since, he added, “gross negligence” could be grounds for a criminal charge.
“I may go insane editing this,” Mr. Strzok texted on June 13, in apparent reference to the statement.
On the morning of the interview with Mrs. Clinton, Ms. Page sent Mr. Strzok good wishes. He replied, “Just got Starbucks, already dealing with issues (all admin, as in, her five attorneys all wanting to drive into [FBI headquarters] separately because of fear of media.” When the interview ended, he texted, “Hey, it all went well.”
As the summer wore on, he transitioned into helping spearhead the Russia investigation. He even joked about potential code names with Ms. Page. He said he would reserve “YUUUGE” as their code for Mr. Trump if they ever opened an investigation of him.
Sometimes Ms. Page and Mr. Strzok got into arguments that became emotional, such as a dispute over an article in The Wall Street Journal disclosing that Mr. McCabe’s wife, who ran for a Virginia senate seat in 2015, had received campaign donations from the Virginia governor, a Clinton ally. Republicans said Mr. McCabe should have recused himself from the Clinton email probe.
After Ms. Page texted a link to the story, Mr. Strzok said he was angry that she asked that he not share it with his colleagues. “IT’S ON THE INTERNET!!!!” he exclaimed. She replied, “WHICH YOU ONLY KNOW ABOUT BECAUSE I TOLD YOU IT WAS THERE.”
In May 2017, after Mr. Trump fired Mr. Comey, citing his handling of the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s email server, Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page wrestled with whether to join Mr. Mueller’s team. Mr. Strzok overcame his initial reluctance and struggled to convince Ms. Page to do the same.
“You haven’t asked but I think you should go,” he wrote on June 3. “It is an experience unlike any other you’re going to get. Life changing.”
Two weeks later, Ms. Page texted that she was having second thoughts despite the special counsel’s office taking steps “to have me fully integrated” into the team. By June 21, she wrote, Mr. Strzok that she was “thinking I might leave” the special counsel’s office. She would soon return to her work at the bureau.
Over the next few days, their relationship appeared to deteriorate. The last text is from Ms. Page, arriving in Mr. Strzok’s inbox on a Sunday morning in late June.
“Please,” she wrote, ”don’t ever text me again.”
Write to Del Quentin Wilber at
del.wilber@wsj.com
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