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Trump tweets Fox News video on ex-FBI agent Peter Strzok's anti-Trump texts, Internet refuses to believe channel

As per reports, Strzok says he knows 'things' that could damage Trump's re-election campaign but has opted not to go public with it

Former FBI agent Peter Strzok’s book ‘Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump’ was released on September 8. According to a Daily Mail article, Strzok says he knows 'things' that could damage President Trump's re-election campaign - but has opted not to go public with it.

Strzok's investigating work as a part of Robert Mueller's team was interrupted in 2017 after an inspector general discovered anti-Trump text messages. As reported by Daily Mail, these texts were exchanged during the campaign with an FBI lawyer. Due to the Strzok lost his job and had caught Trump’s ire.

Trump tweeted a Fox News clip where anchor Liz Macdonald is seen discussing the topic of Strzok’s anti-Trump messages. The news segment features a clip of Strzok talking to The Daily Show host Trevor Noah and saying, “Obviously, first and foremost, I wish I never would have sent the damn text I had sent.” The news segment also played another interview clip of the former FBI agent with CNN, where he said when asked that in 2018 he had claimed he couldn’t remember the text he had sent, “This was an off-the-cuff comment made outside of any work context whatsoever.” The anchor then discussed Strzok’s statements with Harmeet Dhillon, a San Francisco-based Republican National Committeewoman. POTUS tweeted the clip and wrote: “WOW! Do you believe this!?” 

Who is Peter Strzok?

Strzok led the FBI's investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email server. And in 2016, he also led the FBI's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. In 2017, he was a part of Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation about any alleged links between Trump's presidential campaign and the Russian government.

However, he was removed when Mueller came to know about the personal text messages exchanged between Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page. As reported by New York Times, one of the texts read, “[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right?” asked Page. To which, Strzok replied, “No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it.” This was from 2016, which the Justice Department inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, had stated raised significant doubts about the FBI’s credibility during the investigation, but he said that he found no evidence that the agents’ political views affected the inquiry.

Due to this, there were speculations that Strzok participated in a conspiracy to damage the Trump presidency. He was also labeled to be the ‘Deep Sate’.  He was fired in 2018 and in 2019, he filed a wrongful termination suit against the FBI and the US Department of Justice. According to Politico, Strzok alleged that the president bullied law enforcement officials while deciding his fate, and raised questions about why his texts were leaked to the media and hit out at the administration for defending its employees’ free speech rights only when they praised POTUS. In December 2019, a report by the Justice Department inspector general Horowitz specifically said that Strzok and Page did not act out of bias at the start of the investigation.

Trump had attacked Strzok earlier as well. He had tweeted in 2018, “Just fired Agent Strzok, formerly of the FBI, was in charge of the Crooked Hillary Clinton sham investigation. It was a total fraud on the American public and should be properly redone!”

After his recent tweet about the Fox News clip about Strzok, Twitterati also commented on it. One user mocked, "WOW! Do you believe 200k are dead under your watch? Do you believe this? WOW!!". Another questioned, "Why are you watching TV when CA and Oregon and the entire west coast is under an emergency! You’ve got to go!" 

Another user commented, " Here is what I can't believe. That when faced with a deadly virus, you intentionally deceived and misled the American people, and in the face of our disaster you show no remorse." One accused Fox News and said, "The second I saw fox news I said "Nope, don't believe it." Because they lie so much, its almost a certainty that they're lying. I don't have to hear it or read it. It's most likely to be a lie."