FBI agent Peter Strzok testifies before Congress July 12, 2018. (Wikimedia Commons)
Former FBI agent Peter Strzok and former DOJ official Bruce Ohr were “two of the pivotal players in the Deep State, anti-Trump collusion,” according to government watchdog Judicial Watch.
The two communicated during the compilation of the anti-Trump “dossier,” its dissemination and its use as evidence to spy on the Trump campaign.
Ohr himself “testified before Congress that he did, in fact, meet and communicate with Strzok,” Judicial Watch said.
Yet the DOJ insist there are no records of their texts, emails or phone calls.
So Judicial Watch has announced a lawsuit to convince the federal department to dig deeper.
“Judicial Watch is challenging the Justice Department’s extraordinary claim that there are no records of communications between Strzok and Ohr in light of the preeminent role both individuals played in the Deep State effort to undermine the Trump campaign and administration,” the watchdog said Tuesday.
Judicial Watch explained the Freedom of Information Act case was filed following two similar July 20, 2018, requests to the Justice Department and the FBI.
The FBI didn’t respond, and the DOJ claimed there were no records.
“On April 25, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) submitted a letter to Attorney General William Barr about text messages from Strzok to former FBI lawyer Lisa Page ‘that may show potential attempts by the FBI to conduct surveillance of President-elect Trump’s transition team,'” Judicial Watch explained.
“We know that Peter Strzok was deeply involved in both running the Hillary server investigation cover-up by the FBI and in creating the counterintelligence ‘investigation’ of false claims of Trump-Russian collusion,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “It’s doubtful that Ohr’s meetings with Strzok over a matter of national importance happened without a scrap of communication. It’s past time the Justice Department began acting in good faith, stop the game-playing, abide by the law and produce the documents.”
Some of the documents verifying what happened under the direction of the Obama administration while Trump was running his 2016 campaign soon may become public. Trump has promised to declassify certain records related to the Russia investigation.
On Monday, Judicial Watch disclosed that emails it obtained released show Ohr was concerned about “ethics issues” before he testified to Congress.
“Bruce Ohr was the conflicted center of the Clinton-DNC effort to launder fraudulent Russia material into the Justice Department and FBI,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “These documents show that Bruce Ohr was aware enough to look for advice – or look for cover – on ethics issue.”
Ohr served as a liaison between former British spy Christopher Steele, the author of the anti-Trump dossier commissioned by Fusion GPS, and the DOJ.
Funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, the dossier was used by the DOJ and FBI to obtain a warrant to spy on the Trump campaign.
Fitton noted Ohr’s wife, Fusion GPS employee Nellie Ohr, “had chummy relationships with various Justice Department officials, which illustrates perfectly why it was so easy for Fusion GPS to sell its anti-Trump Dossier scam.”
The new documents reveal, Judicial Watch said, “Ohr in his January 2018 preparation to testify to the Senate and House intelligence committees wrote to a lawyer about “possible ethics concerns.”
Ohr forwarded the email to his wife, who had been hired by Fusion GPS.
Judicial Watch has filed numerous FOIA requests in its investigation of the origins of the Obama administration’s probes of Russia and the Trump campaign.
While Democrats for two years insisted evidence of Trump campaign collusion with Russia was “in plain sight,” special counsel Robert Mueller concluded in a report made public this month there was no collusion.
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