WASHINGTON — Two former FBI agents have reached a preliminary settlement with the Department of Justice to resolve allegations that their privacy was breached during the department’s leaks to the news media. text messages said they sent each other insulting former President Donald Trump.
The initial deal was announced in a brief court filing Tuesday that did not disclose any of the terms.
Peter Strzok, a former FBI counterintelligence agent who helped lead the bureau investigation He was fired in 2018 after anti-Trump messages came to light, having been involved in potential ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Former FBI attorney Lisa Page resigned voluntarily that same year.
In federal lawsuits filed in the District of Columbia, they alleged that the Justice Department violated their privacy rights when the officials shared copies of their communications with reporters in December 2017, including messages describing Trump as a “stupid” and “disgusting man.” ” and it called the prospect of a Trump victory “terrifying”.
Strzok sued the department over his termination, claiming that the FBI bowed to Trump’s “relentless pressure” in firing him and violated his First Amendment rights. According to the court notice, those constitutional claims were not resolved through preliminary settlement.
Trump, who publicly defended and impeached Strzok’s firing treasonwas interrogated under oath last year as part of protracted legal proceedings.
The text messages were discovered during an investigation by the Department of Justice’s inspector general The FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state.
Strzok was also the lead agent in that investigation, and he notes in his lawsuit that the inspector general found no evidence that political bias tainted the email probe. However, the text messages resulted in Strzok’s removal from the special counsel team handling the Trump-Russia investigation and helped fuel Trump’s criticism that the investigation was a politically motivated “witch hunt.”
Chief Inspector found numerous flaws with this study, however, found no evidence that these problems could be attributed to any party bias.
Attorneys for Strzok and Page declined to comment Tuesday night. A Justice Department spokeswoman also declined to comment, but the department said officials had previously determined that the text messages, which were also released to members of Congress, were permissible to share with the media.