We were deeply troubled by
text messages exchanged
between Strzok and Page that potentially indicated or
created the appearance that investigative decisions
were impacted by bias or improper considerations.
Most of the text messages raising such questions
pertained to the Russia investigation, which was not a
part of this review. Nonetheless, when one
senior FBI
official, Strzok, who was helping to lead the Russia
investigation at the time, conveys in a text message to
another senior FBI official, Page, “No. No he won’t.
We’ll stop it” in response to her question “[Trump’s] not
ever going to bec
ome president, right? Right?!”, it is
not only indicative of a biased state of mind but, even
more seriously, implies a willingness to take official
action to impact the presidential candidate’s electoral
prospects. This is
antithetical to the
core
values of the
FBI
and the
Department of Justice.
We do not question that the FBI employees who sent
these messages are entitled to their own political views.
However, we believe using FBI devices to send the
messages discussed in Chapter Twelve
—particularly the
messages that intermix work
-related discussions with
political commentary
—potentially implicate provisions in
the FBI’s Offense Code and Penalty Guidelines. At a
minimum, we found that the employees’ use of FBI
systems and devices to send
the identified messages
demonstrated extremely poor judgment and a gross
lack of professionalism. We therefore refer this
information to the FBI for its handling and consideration
of whether the messages sent by the five employees
listed above violated the FBI’s Offense Code of Conduct