Ex-FBI official Peter Strzok condemns FISA abuse accusations in Trump-Russia probe, says agents were ‘overworked’
Disgraced FBI official Peter Strzok has attributed failures of the agency with regard to its surveillance of former Trump aide Carter Page, as found in a government watchdog report to agents being "overworked." “I don’t think at all that it’s anything improper. You get people who are overworked, who make mistakes — and don’t get me wrong, inexcusable mistakes,” Strzok said in an interview with “CBS Sunday Morning" that aired Sunday.
The former FBI deputy chief of counterintelligence, who was fired in August 2018, was asked during the interview about a Justice Department inspector general’s report that held the bureau accountable for "a series of errors and omissions in applications for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against Carter Page," the Daily Caller reported.
There were at least 17 “significant” errors in the FISA applications, per the IG report, including omissions of exculpatory evidence against the Trump campaign as well as the FBI's failure to probe information on the notorious Steele dossier. Strzok, who oversaw the 'Crossfire Hurricane' probe into potential Trump-Russia ties, drafted the paperwork that initiated the investigation on July 31, 2016.
Meanwhile, he also lobbied extensively to obtain the initial FISA warrant against Page later that year. In an email titled "Crossfire FISA sent on October 14, 2016, Strzok suggested that then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe should work with the Justice Department to help authorize the FISA. “At a minimum, that keeps the hurry the F up pressure on him (sic),” Strzok wrote in the email.
The FBI was blasted in the IG report for relying on the unverified Steele dossier in the FISA application as a basis for the investigation.
In an ongoing investigation led by U.S. Attorney John Durham, former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith has pleaded guilty to altering an email about Carter Page during the Trump-Russia probe. "Clinesmith admitted that he added the phrase “not a ‘source'” to an email from a CIA analyst regarding Page’s longstanding relationship with the spy agent," the Daily Caller reported.
Meanwhile, the IG report also criticizes FBI counterintelligence agent Steven Somma as being “primarily responsible” for a number of errors in the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign.
Strzok had repeated contacts with both Clinesmith and Somma and was also aware of negative information on Steele that he failed to relay to the CIA or to the FISA court, per the report. It found that Strzok and his superior Bill Priestoap met with British government officials in December 2016 to assess Steele's reliability, and found that while Steele was an honest broker, he "often displayed questionable judgment," per the Daily Caller.
Steele's questionable reliability was never mentioned in the FBI’s renewal applications for FISA warrants on Carter Page, per the IG report. That said, Attorney General William Barr has rejected the idea that the glaring errors in Crossfire Hurricane could be linked to the absent-mindedness of investigators. “My own view is that the evidence shows that we are not dealing with just mistakes or sloppiness, there is something far more troubling here,” he told Fox News in April.
Citing the FBI's errors, the Justice Department deemed two of the four FISAs against Carter Page to be invalid.