FBI agent Peter Strzok was in the hot seat for 10 hours Thursday, as members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee grilled him on texts sent to another agent in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election. At the time, Strzok was a principal team member on investigations into Hillary Clinton's emails and into possible collusion between the Donald Trump campaign and Russia. Text messages obtained by Special Counsel Robert Mueller show Strzok making disparaging remarks about Trump and, in one message, assuring colleague and romantic partner Lisa Page that "we'll stop" Trump from becoming president. "Strzok said under aggressive questioning that a much-discussed August 2016 text…followed Trump's denigration of the family of a dead U.S. service member," the Associated Press notes. He said the late-night, off-the-cuff text reflected his belief that Americans would not stomach such "horrible, disgusting behavior" by the presidential candidate. But, he added in a raised voice and emphatic tone: "It was in no way—unequivocally—any suggestion that me, the FBI, would take any action whatsoever to improperly impact the electoral process for any candidate. So, I take great offense, and I take great disagreement to your assertion of what that was or wasn't." Republicans on the Congressional committee, including chair Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), refused to budge on the now-popular GOP narrative that Strzok Gowdy tried to throw the election for Clinton. "Agent Strzok had Hillary Clinton winning the White House before he finished investigating her," Gowdy told the committee. "Agent Strzok had Donald Trump impeached before he even started investigating him. That is bias." Goodlatte threatened Strzok with contempt. Gohmert accused Strzok of perjury and mentioned his wife and affair. And Darrell Issa forced Strzok to read his own text messages aloud—including ones that included vulgarities. A look at today's "3-ring circus": https://t.co/LZROSOCc7p — Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) July 13, 2018 By the day's end, the hearing "devolved into shouting matches, finger-pointing and veiled references to personal transgressions," says the AP. Throughout the circus, Strzok insisted that his personal feelings about Trump didn't affect his job, pointing out that he had also criticized Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders in his messages but had never leaked information or let negative views of any candidate bias his work. "What I am telling you is I and the other men and women of the FBI, every day take our personal beliefs, and set those aside in vigorous pursuit of the truth—wherever it lies, whatever it is," said Strzok. "And I don't believe you," responded Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas). FREE MINDS A collective "right to attention"? Our increasingly paranoid national discourse on "Russian influence" on U.S. elections reveals a strange new statist tendency: governments (and those that love them) asserting "a collective right to attention." Those with "fears over 'election-hacking' in the 2016 U.S., U.K., French and German elections," laments Julia Slupska, seldom stop to ponder a more fundamental question: "If a state interferes with another state's politics, is it wrong? On what grounds?" More from Slupska's recent Libertarianism.org post: [H]ow can we object to foreign interference without implicitly justifying information control? Complaints over foreign propaganda have uncomfortable implications: if funding online advertisements counts as unacceptable foreign meddling, why doesn't funding radio stations like Radio Free Europe (as Russia Today points out)? What—precisely—is unethical about interference anyway? This blog posts suggests that we might be able to find some clarity on these issues from an unexpected source: the emerging literature on digital design ethics. Digital environments are often designed to pilfer your attention. The '…' that comes up when you're waiting for someone to text you back keeps you at your screen, waiting for a reward. Facebook and Twitter feeds auto-refresh without prompting to keep you scrolling. Bright red notifications remind us of our desire for social interaction. Persuasive design might be annoying, but is it also in some sense unethical? Many say yes. "An emerging literature on the ethics of attention seeks to…create ethical guidelines for technology designers, primarily those whose business model is based on advertising" and "suggests that attention-grabbing intrusions can be unethical," especially "when systematic distractions infringe on individual freedom and agency," notes Slupska. She believes these concerns present "a useful framework for understanding disruptive and confusing phenomena in modern politics," such as fears over "election-hacking." Current debates underappreciate the extent to which election-hacking is about conflict over attention rather than information. Leading scholars of state propaganda have noted that states are increasingly focusing on amplification of government opinion rather than censoring specific information. Our limited ability to consume information is key to these strategies; consequently, political theory needs to incorporate the ethics of attention. This suggests a startling new reality: just as states traditionally competed for resources like territory or oil, they now seem to be competing for attention. Read the whole thing here. FREE MARKETS We're losing tens of millions of dollars per year minting U.S. pennies. In 2017, "the U.S. Mint produced more than 8.4 billion pennies for circulation," reports Government Executive. "Between production costs and shipping, they cost $0.0182 each, which totaled to $69 million…in losses compared to their total value—the biggest in nine years." The rising cost of zinc, which makes up the bulk of penny composition, is one of the culprits. Nickels are also money-losers for the government, but "the Mint makes up the losses incurred on pennies and nickels with its 10- and 25-cent coins, and last year reported making $391.5 million in seigniorage." FOLLOW-UP Daniels dances again. The charges against Stormy Daniels for allegedly violating an Ohio strip-club law while dancing in Columbus this week have been dropped. Daniels performed at a different Columbus club Thursday night, saying that proceeds would go to the defense of the two other dancers arrested with her. The arrests are part of what Columbus cops have called an ongoing "human trafficking" operation. Saddened to hear the other 2 dancers arrested with me last night did not have their charges dropped. All tips from my stage performance tonight at Sirens in Columbus will go towards their legal fees. Come support the working women of this city. #letussurvive — Stormy Daniels (@StormyDaniels) July 12, 2018 QUICK HITS<doc-sep>Here are things to know about Peter Strzok and his communication with FBI lawyer Lisa Page: An embattled FBI agent is testifying before a House committee Thursday over anti-Trump text messages he sent to a colleague with whom he was romantically involved amid the runup to the 2016 presidential election. Multiple news outlets reported in December that Robert Mueller had removed Strzok from the special counsel’s team investigating President Trump last summer after the discovery of the anti-Trump texts. A spokesman for Robert Mueller told the Wall Street Journal that the special counsel removed Strzok “immediately upon learning of the allegations.” Advertisement Strzok was reassigned to the FBI’s human resources department. He was one of the subjects of a scathing inspector general report at the Department of Justice A report by the Department of Justice’s inspector general released in June is highly critical of Strzok’s actions, in particular one text exchange between the agent and Page in which Page asks him, “[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right? !” and Strzok responds, “No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it.” The inspector general found the texts were “not only indicative of a biased state of mind but, even more seriously, implies a willingness to take official action to impact the presidential candidate’s electoral prospects.” However, the report found that there was no evidence that the FBI tried to rig the election for former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, as some Republicans have claimed. He was one of the FBI agents who helped lead the Clinton e-mail investigation Strzok was considered one of the agency’s most experienced counterintelligence agents at the time of his reassignment and had been involved with the FBI investigation into Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server. Conservatives have latched onto his involvement in the probe — which did not result in any charges — as evidence of biased actions by Strzok, a charge he has denied. Advertisement He’s a favorite target of President Trump’s Twitter ire President Trump has mentioned Strzok in his tweets directly at least 14 times since December, including twice Tuesday. Trump has nicknamed Strzok and Page “FBI lovers” and suggested that the entire Russia investigation is tainted because of the contents of the texts. Strzok argued at a House hearing Thursday that the texts represented personal views that did not affect his work at the FBI. His texts about Trump were scathing, but they didn’t spare Democrats The texts between the two FBI agents included unflinching criticism of President Trump. But Strzok called Senator Bernie Sanders “an idiot like Trump” in one exchange with Page, and called former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, who was running for the Democratic nomination at the time, a “freakshow.” The pair didn’t seem to have much confidence in politicians generally, with Strzok saying he loathed Congress in response to a text from Page. Christina Prignano can be reached at christina.prignano@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @cprignano.<doc-sep>FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok testifies before the the House Committees on the Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform during a hearing on "Oversight of FBI and DOJ Actions Surrounding the 2016 Election," on Capitol Hill, Thursday, July 12, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) FBI Agent Peter Strzok, who exchanged 375 text messages with Department of Justice attorney Lisa Page that led to his removal from special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into ties between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin's efforts to interfere in the U.S. election last summer, photographed outside his home in Fairfax, Virginia on Wednesday, January 3, 2018. Credit: Ron Sachs / CNP (RESTRICTION: NO New York or New Jersey Newspapers or newspapers within a 75 mile radius of any part of New York, New York, including without limitation the New York Daily News, The New York Times, and Newsday.) Photo by: Ron Sachs/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok testifies before the House Committees on the Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform during a hearing on "Oversight of FBI and DOJ Actions Surrounding the 2016 Election," on Capitol Hill, Thursday, July 12, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 12: Deputy Assistant FBI Director Peter Strzok prepares to testify before a joint hearing of the House Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform committees in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill July 12, 2018 in Washington, DC. While involved in the probe into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server in 2016, Strzok exchanged text messages with FBI attorney Lisa Page that were critical of Trump. After learning about the messages, Mueller removed Strzok from his investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to win the 2016 presidential election. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) (CNN) — Embattled FBI agent Peter Strzok on Thursday defended a controversial text he sent disparaging Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign by saying it was written in response to “then-candidate Trump insulting the immigrant family of a fallen war hero.” The text exchange at issue was detailed in a recently-released Justice Department internal watchdog report, which revealed that on August 8, 2016, now ex-FBI lawyer Lisa Page wrote in a text, Trump is “not ever going to become president, right? Right? !” to which Strzok replied, “No. No he’s not. We’ll stop it.” Republicans have criticized the message and seized on the exchange to argue that it demonstrates evidence of anti-Trump bias at the FBI. During a contentious congressional hearing on Thursday, Strzok attempted to explain why he sent the message in the first place. “In terms of the texts that ‘we will stop it,’ you need to understand that was written late at night, off-the-cuff, and it was in response to a series of events that included then-candidate Trump insulting the immigrant family of a fallen war hero, and my presumption, based on that horrible, disgusting behavior that the American population would not elect somebody demonstrating that behavior to be President of the United States,” Strzok said. At the end of July 2016 — just days before the August 8 text exchange – Trump shot back at Gold Star parents Khizr and Ghazala Khan, whose son US Army Capt. Humayun Khan was killed in 2004, after Khizr criticized Trump at the Democratic National Convention. Trump responded by questioning why Ghazala, who stood at her husband’s side during the DNC speech, didn’t speak herself. “She probably, maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say. You tell me,” Trump said during an interview with ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos. Strzok said on Thursday that his message, “was in no way, unequivocally, any suggestion that me, the FBI, would take any action whatsoever to improperly impact the electoral process, for any candidate,” and later said that “at no time in any of these texts did those personal beliefs ever enter into the realm of any action I took.” At the conclusion of his remarks, several Democratic members of the committees audibly cheered. CNN’s Liz Stark, Laura Jarrett, David Siegel, David Shortell and Jeremy Herb contributed to this report.<doc-sep>Peter Strzok, the FBI agent whose anti-Trump text messages raised concerns that the Mueller investigation was tainted by political bias, will testify before Congress on Thursday. It has the potential to be an explosive hearing. A veteran counterintelligence agent, Strzok was directly involved in the probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server in 2016, and special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to win the 2016 presidential election. In the summer of 2017 the Justice Department found that Strzok had sent text messages critical of Trump to FBI attorney Lisa Page in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. Mueller removed Strzok from his investigation after learning the information that summer. But when some of Strzok’s texts were released to the public in December, many conservatives interpreted his cryptic messages to Page as evidence that he was plotting to interfere with the presidential election. One of his text messages in particular, which mentioned having an “insurance policy” against Trump winning, aroused suspicion among his critics. But in June, the Justice Department’s inspector general released a report that found there was no evidence that Strzok acted on the anti-Trump sentiment he expressed to Page while working on the Trump-Russia probe, and the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server. “Our review did not find documentary or testimonial evidence directly connecting the political views these employees expressed in their text messages and instant messages to the investigative decisions we reviewed,” the IG report states. However, the new report also brought to light more texts from Strzok to Page, the most controversial one of which said, “We’ll stop it,” when referring to the prospect of Trump winning the election. Republicans and right-wing pundits claimed it confirmed that the FBI was on a political witch hunt to take down the president. Strzok’s lawyer has said that the agent will get a chance to clear his name at the hearing on Thursday. But Republicans are going to hammer Strzok over his text messages, and try to glean some sort of admission of wrongdoing. Simply put, the stakes are huge. If Strzok ends up managing the appearance well, he could potentially put a dent in conspiracy theories about FBI corruption. But if the hearing goes poorly, it will do political damage to the credibility of the Mueller probe, and Mueller’s ability to investigate the full extent of Trumpworld’s relationship with Russia. Strzok is an influential player in the FBI who clearly didn’t like Trump Back in December, the New York Times reported that Mueller had dismissed Strzok from his investigative team last summer because the agent had sent dozens of text messages critical of Donald Trump to a colleague during the 2016 election season. The texts showed he resented Trump and, among other things, referred to then-candidate Trump as a “douche,” an “utter idiot,” and a “loathsome human.” Most damningly from the Republican point of view, Strzok once referred to an “insurance policy” against Trump winning. “I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office — that there’s no way he gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk,” he told Page. “It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.” It’s unclear if he violated any FBI rules, but Mueller removed Strzok to ensure the investigation was free from accusations of partisan bias, according to the Times. A few days later, CNN reported that Strzok, who also led the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server, changed the wording in a description of Clinton’s behavior from “grossly negligent” to “extremely careless” in a draft of a major public statement that then-FBI Director James Comey made in July 2016. That change had the effect of softening Comey’s criticism of Clinton at a particularly sensitive time in the 2016 campaign, and may have made her less vulnerable to criminal charges. Trump and conservative media figures seized on Mueller’s dismissal of Strzok from the Russia investigation and painted it as a shady maneuver intended to cover up partisan bias. And Strzok’s role in softening the language on Clinton’s misconduct, in addition to his text messages — which the FBI lost track of at one point due to a technical glitch — were interpreted by Republicans as a sign that Strzok was conspiring to tip the election in favor of Clinton. In January, new reports showed that Strzok’s role in the Clinton investigation was not as pro-Clinton as it originally looked. CNN obtained emails that showed that Strzok co-wrote the first draft of the letter that then-FBI Director James Comey sent to Congress in October 2016, announcing that the bureau was reopening an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. That letter set off a political firestorm just 11 days before the presidential election and hurt Clinton at the polls — so much so that it may have swung the election in favor of Trump. The texts are shady and inappropriate. That doesn’t make them evidence of biased action. Ultimately, what has dogged Strzok the most is his text messages to Page. And the June IG report’s revelation about the “We’ll stop it” text has made things even worse. It’s not clear exactly what Strzok meant. Was the “we” in “we’ll stop it” the FBI, or is it something vaguer (i.e., “we the people” will “stop” Trump by voting for Clinton)? It’s hard to say, but the former reading is certainly plausible. And if that’s correct, then it could easily be seen as a promise to take action to thwart the Trump campaign. But while it’s inappropriate for someone in Strzok’s position to express favoritism toward a certain presidential candidate, there isn’t clear evidence he acted on those views. The IG report’s investigators looked into Strzok and Page’s conduct, and examined internal FBI records of the meetings concerning Trump that the two were involved in. Here are their key conclusions: We found that Strzok was not the sole decisionmaker for any of the specific investigative decisions examined in this chapter.<doc-sep>
Peter Strzok, the controversial FBI counterintelligence official who became a White House punching bag for sending critical texts about Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, pushed back angrily against Republican accusations Thursday that he was biased in his work, insisting that he never let his political views affect his investigations. “Let me be clear, unequivocally and under oath: Not once in my 26 years of defending my nation did my personal opinions impact any official action I took,” Strzok told the House Judiciary and Oversight committees in a grueling daylong hearing marked by harsh partisan sparring and sometimes fiery exchanges about his role. Strzok added that during the 2016 campaign, he had information that “had the potential to derail and quite possibly defeat Mr. Trump. But the thought of exposing that information never crossed my mind.” He did not reveal the material. With much of the politically charged session aired live on cable TV, and the midterm election less than four months away, lawmakers lined up to harangue Strzok or to defend him — at one point, more than 75 members from the two panels wanted a turn at the microphone. They broke little new ground, however, and Strzok appeared weary but relatively unscathed after eight hours as the only witness. In his first public testimony since his anti-Trump texts were disclosed last year, Strzok sat stiffly, held his chin high and struck a combative tone at times, even suggesting the Republican pummeling of the FBI lent tacit support to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to undermine U.S. democracy. “Today’s hearing is just another victory notch in Putin’s belt and another milestone in our enemies’ campaign to tear America apart,” he said. Strzok helped lead the FBI’s early investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential race and Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server when she was secretary of State. Last year, he was reassigned from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s team after it emerged he had exchanged private texts critical of Trump with Lisa Page, then an FBI attorney, during the campaign. Strzok and Page had an extramarital affair at the time. Page also worked on the FBI’s investigations of Russian election meddling and Clinton’s emails. After their text messages were disclosed, Strzok and Page became targets of House Republicans and especially President Trump, who fired off four tweets since Tuesday alone criticizing the “FBI lovers” in an effort to portray the Mueller investigation as irreparably biased against him. Rep. Robert W. Goodlatte (R-Va.), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, questioned Strzok’s ability to remain neutral in the investigations given his texts with Page. “We don’t want to read text message after text message dripping with bias against one of the two presidential candidates,” Goodlatte said. Strzok testified on June 27 before the House Judiciary Committee and the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in a closed-door session that lasted more than 11 hours. Last week, the Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena to bring him in for a second round of questioning, this time in a public hearing. On Thursday, Strzok emphasized that he regretted that his private messages to Page had caused pain to his family. But he firmly countered accusations that they had revealed an improper bias. While every person has political opinions, he said, FBI agents are trained to leave theirs at the door. Reading several of Strzok’s text messages back to him, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) accused Strzok of having an “unusual and largely self-serving” definition of bias. “He thinks promising to stop someone he is supposed to be fairly investigating from ever becoming president isn’t bias,” Gowdy said. “Strzok even talked about impeachment the day the special counsel was appointed,” he added. “That is prejudging guilt, prejudging punishment, and that is textbook bias.” House Democrats repeatedly accused Republicans of turning Strzok’s testimony into a “spectacle” and condemned attacks on his personal character. At one point, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) told Strzok, “I can’t help but wonder when I see you looking there with a little smirk how many times did you look so innocent into your wife’s eyes.…” Many Democrats gasped and shouted Gohmert down, yelling, “That is outrageous!” and “Shame on you!” Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said the committees’ focus on the “internal workings of the special counsel’s investigation” distracted from more crucial questions about Russian meddling in the 2016 election and the need to protect future U.S. elections from foreign influence.