Text messages from the phones of former FBI agent Peter Strzok and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page were erased after they were dismissed from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigative team.
These were the phones the two former FBI employees used during the short period of time when they worked for Mueller.
Mueller dismissed the pair when he was informed by the Department of Justice’s inspector general that they had made negative comments on text messages about President Trump while serving at the FBI.
The Daily Caller reports:
Department of Justice investigators were unable to recover text messages Peter Strzok and Lisa Page sent during their short tenure on the special counsel’s investigation, according to a report released Thursday by the DOJ’s office of the inspector general (OIG).
According to the OIG report, iPhones issued by the special counsel’s office to Strzok and Page were reset after they left the special counsel probe in July 2017, making it impossible to retrieve text messages sent and received on those devices.
Strzok’s phone was examined by an individual working with the Mueller team before it was erased while it’s unknown who erased Page’s phone.
The Federalist reports:
The 11-page report reveals that almost a month after Strzok was removed from Mueller’s team, his government-issued iPhone was wiped clean and restored to factory settings by another individual working in Mueller’s office. The special counsel’s Record’s Officer told investigators that “she determined it did not contain records that needed to be retained.”
And…
Two weeks after Page departed Mueller’s team on July 15, 2017, her government-issued iPhone was also wiped and restored to factory settings and had not been reissued to another person within the agency. No one within the special counsel’s office or the Justice Management Divisions of the agency had any records as to who cleared all the data from the iPhone.
President Trump called attention to the erased text messages:
So where are all the missing Text messages between fired FBI agents Peter S and the lovely Lisa Page, his lover. Just reported that they have been erased and wiped clean. What an outrage as the totally compromised and conflicted Witch Hunt moves ever so slowly forward. Want them!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 16, 2018
Attorney Victoria Toensing asked an important question regarding the destruction of the text messages:
When #Mueller was told @petestrzok and #page had been texting anti-@realDonaldTrump messages, he secretly fired them and purposely let their phone info be erased. Any of us would be indicted for obstruction of justice. #FrameGate #maga
— Victoria Toensing (@VicToensing) December 17, 2018
It’s clearly possible Strzok and Page continued to slam President Trump while they were working for Mueller. They also could have been criticizing the investigation including Mueller.
How convenient the messages were deleted.
The big question is who is going to investigate the investigators?
