The Justice Department has agreed to pay a total of $2 million to settle legal claims brought by former FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok and former FBI attorney Lisa Page over the DOJ’s release of text messages the pair exchanged.
The agreement ends a lawsuit Page brought, but does not fully resolve Strzok’s separate suit, allowing him to continue to press his claims that he was fired in order to please then-President Donald Trump.
On Friday, Strzok’s lawyers announced his $1.2 million agreement as attorneys for both sides notified a federal judge in Washington that the privacy-focused portion of that dispute was resolved.
“This outcome is a critical step forward in addressing the government’s unfair and highly politicized treatment of Pete,” Strzok attorney Aitan Goelman said in a statement. “As important as it is for him, it also vindicates the privacy interests of all government employees. We will continue to litigate Pete’s constitutional claims to ensure that, in the future, public servants are protected from adverse employment actions motivated by partisan politics.”
Page, who resigned amid the controversy, settled her own Privacy Act claim with the department Friday. Copies of the settlement agreements for Strzok and Page obtained by POLITICO indicate Page is to receive $800,000. The documents state that the U.S. government is not admitting or conceding legal liability.
“The evidence was overwhelming that the release of text messages to the press in December 2017 was for partisan political purposes and was against the law,” Page’s lawyer, Amy Jeffress, said in a statement.
“While I have been vindicated by this result, my fervent hope remains that our institutions of justice will never again play politics with the lives of their employees,” Page added.
Strzok and Page became the target of Trump’s fury soon after the texts became public, showing the two officials disparaging Trump and his supporters. The pair discussed efforts to “stop” Trump from becoming president and characterized aspects of their work as an “insurance policy.”
Trump also harbored suspicion about the two because of their roles in the early stages of the FBI’s investigation into his 2016 presidential campaign’s links to Russia. Trump spent years mocking Strzok and Page in crude terms over their relationship and contending their text messages bolstered claims that the Russia investigation was politically motivated.
Strzok and Page have denied those allegations, saying their private political opinions did not influence their work on FBI matters, and many comments quoted by GOP lawmakers and the press were misconstrued.
During a House hearing in 2018, Strzok said the message about stopping Trump “was written late at night, off-the-cuff, and it was in response to a series of events that included then-candidate Trump insulting the immigrant family of a fallen war hero, and my presumption, based on that horrible, disgusting behavior that the American population would not elect somebody demonstrating that behavior to be president of the United States.”
Justice Department officials shared the messages with journalists on the evening of Dec. 12, 2017, as copies of them were being delivered to Congress in response to requests from committees there.
Depositions taken during the litigation indicated the release was approved by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who said he hoped sharing the messages with reporters would avoid the most inflammatory messages being taken out of context by lawmakers. Top career officials confirmed they approved the release.
Rosenstein declined to comment on the settlements Friday.
A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment on why the agency agreed to the payments.
However, at a House hearing last month, following indications that tentative settlements had been reached, Republicans pressed Attorney General Merrick Garland about why taxpayer money was going to flow to Strzok and Page.
“We reached settlements based on our litigators’ assessment of whether we can win the case and how much it will cost if we lose the case,” Garland said. “The Privacy Act doesn’t distinguish between people we like and people we don’t like, information we like and information we don’t like. If somebody in the government discloses personal information protected by the Privacy Act, that’s the way the law is.”
“So, you can go after a president and you get rewarded for doing so, according to the Justice Department?” House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) replied.
“It’s not a question of reward. It’s a question of the government paying for violating the law,” Garland answered.
The partial settlement in Strzok’s
suit contains a provision that any damages he may be awarded in the
remaining part of his lawsuit will be reduced by $200,000 as a result of
the $1.2 million payment he is to receive. Neither Page nor Strzok can
seek an additional award of legal fees for the claims settled Friday. [SOURCE]
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