Tuesday, July 23, 2024

DSSO_FBI lovebirds Lisa Page, Peter Strzok conspired in Michael Flynn case: docs

By Social Links for Ebony Bowden Published May 7, 2020 Updated May 7, 2020, 6:55 p.m. ET 
 

WASHINGTON — Disgraced anti-Trump FBI lovebirds Lisa Page and Peter Strzok conspired to keep the case against Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn ongoing when they found out it hadn’t been formally closed, new documents show.

In a tranche of court documents released after the Justice Department dropped its case against Flynn on Thursday, emails between then-lovers Strzok and Page in 2017 revealed they contemplated charging Flynn using the Logan Act as the FBI was preparing to end the investigation.

Two weeks before Trump’s inauguration, Strzok — one of the lead agents on the FBI investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election — sent senior FBI lawyer Page a definition of the Logan Act, saying any existing rules on the act “does not involve incoming administrations.”

Page replied: “You are awesome. Thank you.”

The Logan Act makes it a crime for unauthorized Americans to negotiate with a foreign government in a dispute with the United States, but has never resulted in a prosecution.

The emails were sent on the same day that Strzok, then FBI Deputy Assistant Director, learned that the investigation had not been closed in a timely manner, leaving it “unexpectedly, still formally open,” the court papers charge.

Strzok relayed the “serendipitously good” news to Page, telling her, “our utter incompetence actually helps us.”

His former lover, then the Special Counsel to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, reacted with “surprise and relief,” according to the papers. 

Lisa Page and Peter StrzokRonald M. Sachs - CNP; AUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

Documents suggest the FBI was prepared to close an investigation into whether Flynn was a Russian agent before Trump took office in January 2017 — but Strzok instructed agents to “keep it open for now.”

Their affair became public in December 2017 and sent shockwaves through Washington when the Justice Department released hundreds of text messages between the pair mocking Donald Trump and his supporters.

The scandal became central to President Trump’s belief that there was bias in the FBI investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election that Strzok led and Page worked on.

In late 2017, Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents about two contacts with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Flynn was attempting to withdraw his guilty plea ahead of sentencing. He says he did not intentionally lie. [SOURCE]

 

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