FBI agents also sent pro-Trump text messages during Russia probe, DOJ inspector general confirms

Michael Horowitz.
(Image credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

President Trump and his defenders have latched onto the fact that two FBI employees involved in the bureau's investigation into 2016 Russian election interference — agent Peter Strzok and lawyer Lisa Page — exchanged text messages criticizing Trump while the probe was ongoing. But Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz may have poked a hole in that argument during his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday.

Horowitz discovered quite a few things wrong with the investigation, but his team concluded that political bias didn't hinder their efforts, which he reiterated while testifying. He also confirmed that other FBI employees were also discovered to have sent politically-charged text messages. And at least some of those conversations were supportive of Trump.

So, while it's clear individual agents were harboring specific sentiments about the commander-in-chief, things apparently didn't go down exactly the way Trump thought. Tim O'Donnell

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.