In case you missed it over the weekend, news broke that Special Counsel Robert Mueller removed an FBI agent from his investigation into the 2016 presidential election after the agent sent anti-Trump, pro-Hillary text messages to his girlfriend earlier this year.
The agent has been identified as Peter Strzok, one of the agency’s most experienced and trusted counterintelligence investigators, said the New York Times, which first reported the dismissal.
The allegations came to light after the Justice Department’s inspector general started examining Strzok's messages.
“Immediately upon learning of the allegations, the Special Counsel’s Office removed Peter Strzok from the investigation,” Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller, confirmed to Fox News.
The messages were sent by Strzok, a married man, to FBI attorney Lisa Page. The two were having an affair.
Strzok also played a large roll in the FBI's criminal investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was cleared in July 2016 of all potential charges after storing and transmitting top secret, classified information on her personal email server.
"There is evidence they [Clinton and staff] were extremely careless in their handling of classified information," FBI Director James Comey said at the time. "Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case. Prosecutors necessarily weigh a number of factors before deciding whether to bring charges."
Because of the clear political conflict, an inspector general investigation into Strzok's handling of the Clinton case has been opened.
Recommended
Since Comey's July 2016 clearing of Clinton, it's become clear through a series of memos that he planned to exonerate Clinton months before the FBI investigation was complete and long before interviewing her -- the subject of the case.
In summary, Strzok was a main lead on the an investigation into Hillary Clinton, who he supported and Comey wrote her exoneration statement before all of the facts about the case were known.
Add former Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe's connections to the Clintons through his wife's Virginia state senate campaign and one word comes to mind: dirty.