Trump decries ‘total obstruction of justice’ over Strzok-Page text messages – Washington Examiner

President Trump flipped the script on Robert Mueller, claiming the special counsel’s team should be investigated for possibly obstructing justice.

Trump made the assertion Saturday regarding text messages exchanged between two former FBI employees, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who sparked internal and congressional inquiries into potential bias at the bureau. The president alleged Mueller’s team “deleted” the messages, although an internal watchdog inquiry found this was not the case.

“The Mueller Angry Democrats recently deleted approximately 19,000 Text messages between FBI Agent Lisa Page and her lover, Agent Peter S. These Texts were asked for and INVALUABLE to the truth of the Witch Hunt Hoax. This is a total Obstruction of Justice. All Texts Demanded!” Trump tweeted.

Trump’s comments follow Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, arguing Friday that Mueller “should be investigated for destruction of evidence for allowing those text messages from Strzok to be erased, messages that would show the state of mind and tactics of his lead anti-Trump FBI agent at the start of his probe.”

“That should be investigated, damn it, that should be investigated fully. You want a special counsel, get one for that,” Giuliani told Hill.TV.

However, the Justice Department’s watchdog found this month that the FBI did not intentionally destroy the messages sent between Strzok and Page from December 2016 and May 2017; rather, a technological glitch was responsible for the texts not being archived. While the DOJ’s Office of Inspector General estimated about 19,000 texts were not immediately available for investigators to inspect, experts were eventually able to retrieve the messages from their government-issued phones.

Among the recovered texts between Strzok and Page, who were having an extramarital affair at the time, was one in which they expressed hope that they would “stop” Trump. The pair both worked on the FBI’s examination of Hillary Clinton’s private email server use and briefly served on Mueller’s federal Russia inquiry before leaving the bureau.

Mueller is looking into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin, and reportedly expanded the inquiry to examine whether the president obstructed justice by involving himself in the FBI’s own probe into the matters.