When the FBI tapped him to investigate whether the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to shape the presidential election, agent Peter Strzok was thrilled.
“And damn this feels momentous,” Strzok wrote to an FBI lawyer in July 2016. “Because this matters.”
At that point, the task ahead did not seem too daunting for the celebrated counterintelligence investigator who had spent decades busting terrorists and spies. Donald Trump, a former reality-TV star and the Republican nominee for president, seemed unlikely to win the election. The FBI’s examination of his campaign was a secret. And the public pressure that Strzok faced in his last politically charged case — the investigation of Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton — was not quite so intense.
But by the following spring, everything had changed. Trump upset Clinton in the November election, and the FBI director said publicly that the president’s campaign was being examined. A special counsel was appointed to lead the high-stakes case.
Strzok confided in friends that his early enthusiasm had abated.
“The impression I got was that he didn’t want to go and get involved in some political thing that was going to drag out forever and have nothing come of it,” said a former FBI official who discussed the case with Strzok.
The case would come to upend Strzok’s life — airing to the world his marital infidelity and bringing his distinguished, 22-year FBI career to an ignominious end.
A lot more here...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...09212fb69c2_story.html?utm_term=.3142f3e7cc99
“And damn this feels momentous,” Strzok wrote to an FBI lawyer in July 2016. “Because this matters.”
At that point, the task ahead did not seem too daunting for the celebrated counterintelligence investigator who had spent decades busting terrorists and spies. Donald Trump, a former reality-TV star and the Republican nominee for president, seemed unlikely to win the election. The FBI’s examination of his campaign was a secret. And the public pressure that Strzok faced in his last politically charged case — the investigation of Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton — was not quite so intense.
But by the following spring, everything had changed. Trump upset Clinton in the November election, and the FBI director said publicly that the president’s campaign was being examined. A special counsel was appointed to lead the high-stakes case.
Strzok confided in friends that his early enthusiasm had abated.
“The impression I got was that he didn’t want to go and get involved in some political thing that was going to drag out forever and have nothing come of it,” said a former FBI official who discussed the case with Strzok.
The case would come to upend Strzok’s life — airing to the world his marital infidelity and bringing his distinguished, 22-year FBI career to an ignominious end.
A lot more here...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...09212fb69c2_story.html?utm_term=.3142f3e7cc99