It turns out that FBI agent Peter Strzok, Fox News’ poster child for anti-Trump bias in the Mueller investigation, has it in for some Democrats too.
If you’ve turned on Fox News lately, you know that agent Strzok, who was removed from the Russia investigation once some anti-Trump sentiment in texts was revealed, has served as a convenient vehicle for the Trump lapdogs to claim that the entire investigation has been discredited. Even though they have never come up with any evidence that Strzok’s work was tainted.
Sean Hannity, the sworn enemy of anyone who dares to criticize Trump, called the information about Strzok “a smoking gun” and suggested he belonged in a banana republic. Catherine Herridge, Fox’s “chief intelligence correspondent” (i.e. chief stenographer and mouthpiece for GOP foreign policy/intel talking points) read on air some of Strzok’s most anti-Trump/pro-Clinton-email texts. “He drops the F-bomb on candidate Trump,” she said accusingly. She went on to say that Strzok is a top counter-intelligence agent and “as one of my contacts pointed out, to be sending text messages like this, at the very least is sloppy and shows very poor judgment.” Who do you think Herridge's contact was? Kellyanne Conway? Sarah Huckabee Sanders?
Worst of all was Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett. He used Strzok to claim Mueller “has been using the FBI as a political weapon” and likened the agency to “the old KGB.”
Well, guess what? Strzok’s texts contained a lot of animosity toward Democrats. From The Hill (via NewsHound Richard):
Found in the 375 text messages given to Congress by the Justice Department, senior counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok reportedly called supporters of Sanders "idiots," as reported Thursday by Wall Street Journal.
Strzok and attorney Lisa Page also panned Holder, who would have once been their boss at the Justice Department.
During Holder's speech at the Democratic National Convention, Strzok texted, “Oh God, Holder! Turn it off turn if off!!!"
In other words, Strzok is not the stealth Democratic operative Fox News has painted him as. He's probably an agent with opinions, one who put them aside to do his job as a professional, just as Fox’s own judicial analyst, Judge Andrew Napolitano, suggested was probably the case.
In fact, I’ll bet there are plenty of so-called journalists at Fox who could take a lesson in unbiased professionalism from Strzok.
Watch Jarrett’s inexcusable attack on the FBI below, from the December 6, 2017 Hannity show.
Not that the man’s private thoughts have any bearing on his professional conduct, but I would be interested in seeing the whole, unedited, collection.
She is awful. I recall her not being so bad back in the GWB days.
Also, good to “see you” again. Hope all has been well.
I’m watching Anderson Cooper on CNN and he’s bringing up this point that the 375 text messages that have been released show Strzok mouthing off about Democrats as well as Trump. Will Fox News – Trumpland – be forced to admit they’re selectively data mining these messages to prop up The Donald? Doubtful. They’ll likely keep pounding the point depending on their conservative fanboys staying in their bubble and knowing no better.
