Peter Strzok Says He Didn’t Know of Major Mistakes in Trump-Russia Probe Documents

FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok testifies at the Committee on the Judiciary and Committee on "Oversight and Government Reform Joint Hearing on Oversight of FBI and DOJ Actions Surrounding the 2016 Election" in Washington on July 12, 2018. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

A former top FBI official has said he did not know that the bureau wrongly said the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) conveyed sketchy claims regarding Donald Trump and Russia ahead of the 2016 election, despite being sent the documents containing the false details.

Both the opening and closing electronic communications (ECs), or documents, for the FBI probe into the claims of a secret backchannel between Trump’s business and Alfa Bank said they were referred by the DOJ.

But during a recent trial, agents in the FBI’s Chicago Field Office, who led the investigation, said those descriptions were not true. They described what happened as mistakes, or “typos.”

The actual source of the information was Michael Sussmann, a lawyer representing the campaign of Hillary Clinton and a technology executive named Rodney Joffe, who has said he was promised a position in the government if Clinton beat Trump. Sussmann took thumb drives containing data and white papers to an FBI lawyer on Sept. 19, 2016.

“I was not aware that Chicago in this case, who had opened the case, was unaware of where the information came from,” Peter Strzok, the former FBI counterintelligence official, said after the trial during a recent appearance on a show hosted by the Brookings Institution’s Benjamin Wittes.

“They put in the EC, the opening communication of the case, that it had come from the Department of Justice, which is incorrect, and they put in the closing EC, and that was obviously incorrect,” Strzok added.

Strzok received the document memorializing the opening of the case, but wasn’t pressed on that point by Wittes. Other bureau employees were also sent the communication, including Jonathan Moffa, another top counterintelligence official. Strzok was not sent the document that summarized why the case was being closed.

James Baker, the FBI lawyer who met with Sussmann, said on the stand during Sussmann’s trial that he told Strzok soon after the meeting who he received the information from. Strzok was identified on a chain of custody form for the evidence as receiving it that same day and turning it over to another official hours later.

In his new remarks, Strzok also said he did not know that agents charged with investigating the Trump-Alfa Bank claims made “repeated requests” to the FBI’s headquarters to interview the source of the allegations. During the trial, those agents testified that their efforts were stonewalled by officials, who were acting on the orders of senior leaders.

And Strzok appeared to confirm the recollection of FBI agent Ryan Gaynor, who described a “close hold,” or orders to keep Sussmann’s identity secret from agents, after lawyers for Sussmann suggested there was not a hold on the identity.

“I remember broadly all of these things being very ‘close hold,’” Strzok said.

Strzok was fired in mid-2018 for exchanging thousands of texts with Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer, including ones denigrating Trump and discussing plans stop the Republican from becoming president. Strzok was also the official who authored the document that opened Crossfire Hurricane, the U.S. government investigation into Trump and his campaign, playing a key role in that investigation and later helping with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into supposed Trump-Russia links.