A veteran FBI agent who exchanged anti-Trump text messages with a colleague during the election has been fired from the FBI, his lawyer has said.<\/p>\n
Peter Strzok has been accused by Republicans of being biased against Donald Trump, and seeking to prevent his election victory.<\/p>\n
Mr Trump has pointed to the text exchanges as evidence of bias in the special counsel’s Russia probe.<\/p>\n
Mr Strzok served on the Russia probe and the Hillary Clinton email inquiry.<\/p>\n
Mr Strzok’s lawyer Aitan Goelman said in a statement that FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich ordered the firing on Friday.<\/p>\n
He said the sacking overruled a decision by the head of FBI employee discipline, who determined that Mr Strzok should only face a demotion and a 60-day suspension.<\/p>\n
“The decision to fire Special Agent Strzok is not only a departure from typical Bureau practice, but also contradicts Director [Christopher] Wray’s testimony to Congress and his assurances that the FBI intended to follow its regular process in this and all personnel matters,” Mr Goelman said in a statement on Monday.<\/p>\n
“This decision should be deeply troubling to all Americans. A lengthy investigation and multiple rounds of congressional testimony failed to produce a shred of evidence that Special Agent Strzok’s personal views ever affected his work.”<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the FBI told the BBC that they could not immediately comment on Mr Strzok’s firing.<\/p>\n
Mr Trump took to Twitter on Monday to ask when the inquiry into Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 election, which is being led by ex-FBI director Robert Mueller, will end.<\/p>\n
“Agent Peter Strzok was just fired from the FBI – finally. The list of bad players in the FBI & DOJ gets longer & longer,” he tweeted.<\/p>\n
In another tweet, he called the inquiry into Hillary Clinton’s email server, a “sham investigation,” saying it “was a total fraud on the American public and should be properly redone!”<\/p>\n
During the election, Mrs Clinton was investigated by the FBI over her use of a private email server to handle sensitive government documents during her time as secretary of state.<\/p>\n
Mr Strzok exchanged text messages that disparaged Mr Trump with FBI lawyer Lisa Page, with whom he was having an affair.<\/p>\n
In one exchange, Ms Page asks: Trump is “not ever going to become president, right? Right?!”<\/p>\n
Mr Strzok responds: “No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it.”<\/p>\n
Mr Trump has attacked the two “FBI lovers” as recently as last Saturday.<\/p>\n
“So many of the great men and women of the FBI have been hurt by these clowns and losers!”<\/p>\n
In a heated congressional hearing last month, Mr Strzok – a 21-year veteran of the FBI – asserted there was “no evidence of bias in my professional actions”.<\/p>\n
He was repeatedly attacked by Republican lawmakers, and expressed “significant regret” for the texts.<\/p>\n
Under FBI regulations, agents may express political opinions “as an individual”. It is not clear whether these texts were sent from work phones.<\/p>\n
Amid Republican criticism last year, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said he was confident the special counsel team was being run “appropriately”.<\/p>\n
Mr Rosenstein also noted that the FBI had rules against checking a person’s politics during the hiring process.<\/p>\n
“We are not going to improperly consider political affiliation with our career employees,” he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Strzok is the third high-profile FBI employee who had been involved in the Russia and Clinton investigations to be fired since Mr Trump took office.<\/p>\n
FBI Director James Comey was fired by Mr Trump, who later said he had been thinking of the Russia inquiry when he made his decision.<\/p>\n
His deputy Andrew McCabe was removed by Attorney General Jeff Sessions after an inspector general determined that he had made unauthorised leaks to the press about the Clinton investigation.<\/p>\n
Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"