Feds Settle Privacy Claims By Fbi Agent And Lawyer With Early Roles In Trump-russia Probe

The Justice Department has agreed to settle long-running litigation stemming from a decision in 2017 to release to the media text messages between two former FBI employees involved in the probe of alleged ties between Russia and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

In a notice filed with two federal judges in Washington on Tuesday, the Justice Department said it had reached settlements of legal claims that fired FBI agent Peter Strzok and former FBI attorney Lisa Page brought in 2019 alleging that the disclosure violated their privacy.

The terms of the settlements were not disclosed in the notice, which said Strzok’s claims that his firing violated his First Amendment and due process rights are not resolved by the agreement. That litigation, alleging that the FBI caved to political pressure from Trump to fire Strzok just before he was eligible for full retirement pay, is ongoing.

Until now, the Justice Department has denied liability and fought the claims in both suits. Efforts to resolve the cases through mediation have been underway for at least six months.

Officials have said the text messages were shown to journalists at about the same time they were delivered to Capitol Hill and that the disclosure was aimed at preventing lawmakers hostile to Strzok and Page from taking the most inflammatory messages out of context.

The messages showed the pair, who were having an extramarital affair, exchanged texts describing Trump as an “idiot,” saying that Hillary Clinton deserved to win by a huge margin, and disparaging Trump supporters. Strzok, who also played a role in the investigation of Clinton’s handling of classified information, referred to the FBI’s ongoing Russia probe as “an insurance policy,” which Trump and his supporters have interpreted as a suggestion it could be held over Trump’s head if he won the election.

For years, Trump engaged in harsh attacks against the pair on social media and in speeches, using the texts to mock them and their relationship in crude terms.

The two lawsuits have been quietly pending for years as Trump’s more high-profile legal entanglements dominated the headlines. Last fall, the former president was ordered to sit for a limited deposition after a federal judge overseeing fact-finding in the cases — U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson — agreed he might have relevant information.

The Justice Department attempted to prevent the deposition, urging Jackson to reconsider her decision and asking the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to block it. But both Jackson and the appellate judges rejected the department’s efforts, and Trump ultimately sat for a short deposition in New York.

A DOJ spokesperson declined comment on the settlement. Page’s attorney, Lisa Page, and a lawyer for Strzok, Aitan Goelman, had no immediate comment.