Between Strzok and Meadows, the war of words after the lyrics tells the story of the FBI's media leak strategy



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A senior Republican congressman and Peter Strzok's lawyer accused of deliberate dishonesty exchanged blistering and uncontrolled accusations one day after new messages revealed to Strzok a "escape strategy" with the Ministry of Justice. Justice in April 2017.

The texts were presented for the first time in a letter sent by Representative Mark Meadows, NS, on Monday to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. In one of the messages dated April 10, Strzok told former FBI lawyer Lisa Page: "I just found this phone to tell you that I wanted to talk to you about the media leak strategy with you before your departure.

In a revised letter sent Tuesday, Meadows, who sits on the House Oversight Committee, writes that on April 22, Strzok wrote that "the article is out! Well done, Page". It is not known which article Strzok was referring to or was it about Russia's case. In Meadows' original letter, however, he asserted that the exchange had taken place on April 12, a day after the Washington Post had published an article entitled "The FBI had obtained a supervisory mandate from the United States." former Trump advisor ".

The revised Meadows letter also includes a comment from Strzok on the April 12 page, in which Strzok suggests that an article on "the namesake" of Page be published soon. This was an apparent reference to Page, the former Trump advisor that the FBI has been monitoring for months after obtaining a court warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). In April 2017, reports on Page, his contacts in Russia, the interest of the FBI for these contacts and the monitoring mandate supposed to remain secret were numerous.

READ THE ORIGINAL AND REVISED LETTERS FROM MEADOWS HERE

According to Strzok's attorney, Meadows misinterpreted these texts when he told Rosenstein that they "should cause a reasonable person to ask himself if there was a sincere desire to". 39 to investigate wrongdoing or to disseminate derogatory information to warrant continuing investigation ".

"The term" media leak strategy "in Strzok's text refers to a Department initiative to detect and stop leaks in the media, said Strzok's lawyer Aitan Goelman on Tuesday. unfounded plot theories to deceive the American people.

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But Meadows made it clear on Tuesday that he was not buying this explanation.

"If Peter Strzok and his lawyer are waiting for people to believe that Mr. Strzok has not made contact with various media outlets during his stay at the FBI, after all the documents and evidence that we have seen, they are trying to sell a fictional work, "said Meadows." Americans do not buy his mistake. Moreover, if Mr Strzok was actually trying to "control leaks", as his lawyer suggests, it should be mentioned that such an effort was clearly a failure. One has to wonder if there has been a serious effort. "

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Strzok, who was a prominent investigator in the Hillary Clinton and Russia polls, was fired in August after the DOJ's inspector general apologized for a series of anti-Trump text messages that he said he had made. he had sent on his phone. that he said "we will stop" Trump from becoming president.

Carter Page has not been accused of wrongdoing. Heavily redacted documents have since shown that a record written by former British spy Christopher Steele and funded by the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign have played a role in securing the mandate of the FISA to monitor it as early as October 2016.

Documents also showed that the FBI had unduly reassured the FISA court several times that an article in Yahoo News provided an independent base to monitor Page, while he also relied on Steele .

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In his original and revised letters, Meadows noted that The Post's report had unduly triggered "a wave of articles suggesting links between President Trump and Russia."

Meadows wrote that the leaks involved other outlets in addition to the Washington Post. FBI and DOJ officials, including MDJ Attorney and High Representative Robert Mueller Andrew Weissmann, met with several Associated Press reporters in April 2017, according to court documents from the trial of former Trump President Paul Manafort .

Meadows concluded by requesting written submissions from FBI and DOJ officials, including Stu Evans, Mike Kortan, and Joe Pientka, from June 2016 to June 2017, although he pointed out that he did not want to hear from him. was not suggested that they commit wrongdoing.

Congressional sources told Fox News that they were expecting Trump to soon accept a long-standing request from the House's judicial and intelligence committees to declassify more documents used to justify Page supervision, as well as the activities of Attorney Bruce Ohr.

Ohr was in contact in 2016 with Weissmann, then with his colleague, as well as with other senior FBI officials about the controversial anti-Trump case and the people behind him, said two sources close to the folder at Fox News.

Congressional Republicans are still trying to shed light on the role of Ohr in the unchecked Steele file circulation. A memorandum issued in February by the House Intelligence Committee issued by a Republican said that Steele "had maintained contact" with Ohr "before and after" that the government had sent the ex-British spy as a source.

But Republicans said the FBI had failed to disclose to the FISA court not only the sources of funding for the Steele case, but also Ohr's involvement and the fact that his wife, Nellie, had been working on Russian-related issues for Fusion behind the record.

Prior to his recent in-camera testimony on Capitol Hill, Ohr did not respond to Fox News' questions about who, at the FBI or DOJ, allowed his contact with the file about the file and working for GPS Fusion.

Fox News has contacted the DOJ about Ohr and will update if a comment becomes available.

Gregg Re is a publisher for Fox News. Follow him on Twitter @gregg_re.

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