Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) wants answers from the Justice Department.
He wants to know why the FBI waited for weeks before acting on the discovery of thousands of State Department emails on the laptop of ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner, according to Fox News.
Fox obtained a letter sent to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosentein by Johnson, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. Text messages between then-FBI supervisor Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page indicate the two were aware of the emails long before the agency sought a warrant in late October 2016 to search Weiner’s computer.
“The cryptic and disjointed nature of the text messages, in addition to heavy redactions applied to other FBI documents, make it difficult to understand fully the sequence of events,” Johnson (pictured above left) wrote to Rosenstein.
The senator asked Rosenstein to provide the information by March 15.
The emails were part of the FBI’s investigation into 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified information as secretary of state. Then-FBI Director James Comey, in July of that year, had announced Clinton would not face criminal charges over her use of a private server installed in her suburban New York home to store work emails — including some that were classified.
Comey reopened the case days before the 2016 election to review thousands of emails found on the laptop of Weiner (above right), who was married to top Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
Comey later closed the case again after determining there was nothing of evidentiary value in the emails.
According to a report Johnson put out last month detailing text messages between Strzok and Page, the agency knew of the emails back in September 2016.
“Got called up to Andy’s earlier … hundreds of thousands of emails turned over by Weiner’s atty to sdny, includes a ton of material from spouse … Sending team up tomorrow to review … this will never end … ” Strzok texted Page on Sept. 28, 2016.
That likely was a reference to Andrew McCabe, deputy director of the FBI at the time. The reference to “sdny” seems to be to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, where Weiner faced charges in connection with “sexting” underage girls.
And the spouse was Abedin.
“Turned over to them why?” Page responded.
Strzok explained that one of Weiner’s texting partners was younger than 18.
Johnson indicated in the letter that although Strzok and Page exchanged those texts on September 28, it was not until Oct. 27, 2016 — nearly a full month later — that Comey learned the details.
That same day, Strzok texted Page, “Hey, guess what. We’re going to have a mye exam meeting tomorrow. Like old times … ”
Related: Could Robert Mueller Be Giving Up on Russia-Trump Collusion?
MYE Exam was short for midyear examination, the code name FBI agents gave to the Clinton email probe.
“Holy moly. Who?” Page responded.
Strzok answered, “The whole band! We’re back on tour!”
PoliZette senior writer Brendan Kirby can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter.
(photo credit, homepage image: Ron Johnson, CC BY-SA 2.0, by Gage Skidmore / Rep. Anthony Weiner, CC BY-ND 2.0, by Center for American Progress Action Fund; photo credit, article image: Ron Johnson, CC BY-SA 2.0, by Gage Skidmore / Congressman Anthony Weiner, CC BY 2.0, by Boss Tweed)
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