CNN Transcript: […] “New this morning, lawmakers on Capitol Hill getting their hands on a new batch of text messages between two FBI officials who worked, albeit briefly, for Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team. We’re talking about 400 pages of text.
[10:50:09] Joining me now, CNN justice reporter Jessica Schneider. Jessica, what are you learning?
Jessica Schneider (Credit: CNN)
JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John, well, these texts of course have become — they’ve become the focus for Republican lawmakers who have repeatedly criticized the FBI. So this latest batch was partially released over the weekend by Homeland Security chair Ron Johnson. They’re texts between FBI agent Peter Strzok, who worked on the Clinton e-mail server investigation and then the Russia probe until he was pulled off this summer for anti-Trump texts. And they were between him and an FBI lawyer Lisa Page with whom Strzok was having a romantic relationship.
So in that handful of texts that were released this weekend, there is this one from July 1st, 2016. It was about then Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s decision to accept the FBI’s decision on the Clinton matter when she essentially recused herself after she met with Bill Clinton on board her plane.
So here it is. You see Peter Strzok, he texts, “The timing looks like hell, will appear to be choreographed.” That’s when the attorney for the FBI, Lisa Page, she eventually texted back, “And, yes, it’s a real profile in courage since she knows no charges will be brought.”
So in releasing that text message, Senator Johnson, he wrote to the DOJ in response, he said it appears by those texts that Attorney General Lynch knew that no charges would be brought when she made her announcement to let the FBI handle the investigation. (CNN, 1/22/2018)