FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page may have used personal accounts to send official records to each other about the Hillary Clinton email probe in 2016 even as the bureau investigated her for a "similar" practice, according to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley.
“It appears that Strzok and Page transmitted federal records pertaining to the Clinton investigation on private, non-government services,” the Iowa Republican wrote in a Thursday letter to FBI Director Chris Wray.
He questioned whether that affected the bureau's treatment of the Clinton case.“It is important to determine whether their own similar conduct was a factor in not focusing on and developing evidence of similar violations by Secretary Clinton and her aides,” Grassley said.
During the campaign, the FBI investigated Clinton’s use of a private email server instead of a secure, government email account while secretary of state. Then-FBI Director James Comey decided against recommending prosecution, but faulted Clinton and her associates for being “extremely careless” with classified information.
The revelation came as Grassley on Thursday released new messages between Page and Strzok, who were having an affair and exchanged more than 50,000 texts with each other during the election. A number of the texts have gotten attention for indicating their distaste for then-presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Some of those texts released Thursday indicate the agents were using personal accounts for government work.
FBI OFFICIALS WORRIED ABOUT BEING TOO TOUGH ON HILLARY CLINTON DURING EMAIL INVESTIGATION, TEXTS SHOW
In an April 10, 2016 text, Strzok messaged Page to say, “Gmailed you two drafts of what I’m thinking of sending Bill, would appreciate your thoughts."
In other messages, on June 3, Strzok told Page: "Dude. It’s all unclassified. ... Type on home computer and email to yourself."
The context of the discussions is unclear from the raw texts, but Grassley suggested they were related to the Clinton case.