Peter Strzok, the senior FBI agent who led the Hillary Clinton investigation and exchanged a series of anti-Trump messages with another agent during the probe, has been escorted out of the bureau’s Washington, D.C. headquarters, his lawyer confirmed on Tuesday.
"Despite being put through a highly questionable process, Pete has complied with every FBI procedure, including being escorted from the building as a part of the ongoing internal proceedings," Aitan Goelman said in a statement emailed to VOA.
CNN, citing an unnamed source, reported that Strzok was escorted out on Friday.
The FBI declined to comment.
Strzok, a veteran counter-intelligence agent, has become a target of President Donald Trump's criticism of the FBI and the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. Trump and his allies have cited the text messages exchanged between Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page as evidence of the bureau's institutional bias against him.
"Why was the FBI’s sick loser, Peter Strzok, working on the totally discredited Mueller team of 13 Angry & Conflicted Democrats, when Strzok was giving Crooked Hillary a free pass yet telling his lover, lawyer Lisa Page, that “we’ll stop” Trump from becoming President? Witch Hunt!" Trump tweeted on Sunday.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller removed Strzok from his team last year after the Justice Department inspector general examining the FBI's handling of the Clinton probe brought the messages to his attention.
Strzok has since been reassigned to the FBI's human resources department and being investigated for disciplinary action by the bureau's office of professional responsibility.
In one particularly inflammatory message discovered by the inspector general, Strzok wrote "We'll stop it" in response to a text message by Page that Trump might become president.
In his audit of the FBI's investigation of Clinton's use of a private email server, the inspector general, Michael Horowitz, singled out Strzok for his text and instant messages.
The nearly 600-page report, released on Thursday, said that while the messages “cast a cloud” over the FBI’s handling of “the investigation and the investigation’s credibility,” investigators found no evidence that their political bias “directly affected” the email probe.
The inspector general also sharply criticized former FBI director James Comey for "deviating" from long-standing norms during the investigation, but said investigators found no evidence political biases influenced the probe.
Trump and his allies have nevertheless seized on the text exchange to charge that Strzok's anti-Trump animus influenced the FBI's decision not to bring charges against Clinton for mishandling classified material in her emails while secretary of state.
"If someone is prejudging the outcome of an investigation before it ends and someone is prejudging the outcome of an investigation before it even begins, what is more textbook bias," Trey Gowdy, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said during a hearing on the inspector general report on Tuesday.
In his statement, Goelman said Strzok "continues to be the target of unfounded personal attacks, political games and inappropriate information leaks."
"Instead of publicly calling for a long-serving FBI agent to be summarily fired, politicians should allow the disciplinary process to play out free from political pressure," he said.
