Former FBI Officials Reach Tentative Settlement with Justice Department
Two former FBI officials have reached a tentative settlement with the Justice Department to resolve claims that their privacy was violated when the department leaked text messages to the news media that disparaged former President Donald Trump.
The tentative deal was disclosed in a brief court filing on Tuesday without revealing the terms.
Peter Strzok, a former top FBI counterintelligence agent, was fired in 2018 after anti-Trump text messages he sent came to light. Lisa Page, a former FBI lawyer, voluntarily resigned the same year.
In federal lawsuits filed in the District of Columbia, Strzok and Page alleged that the Justice Department infringed on their privacy rights by sharing copies of their communication with reporters in 2017, including messages that criticized Trump.
Strzok also sued the department over his termination, claiming his First Amendment rights were violated and that the FBI caved to pressure from Trump.
Trump, who supported Strzok’s firing and accused him of treason, was questioned under oath last year as part of the ongoing litigation.
The text messages were discovered by the Justice Department inspector general’s office during an investigation into the FBI’s probe of Hillary Clinton’s private email server. Despite no evidence of bias in the email investigation, the messages led to Strzok’s removal from the Trump-Russia investigation.
The inspector general found flaws in the probe but did not attribute them to partisan bias.
Lawyers for Strzok and Page declined to comment, as did a Justice Department spokesman who previously stated it was permissible to share the messages with the media.
