A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed former FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok’s lawsuit claiming his First Amendment rights were violated when he was fired during the first Trump Administration
US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, an Obama appointee, said Peter Strzok did not show his firing violated his First Amendment rights.
Politico reported:
Former FBI agent Peter Strzok has lost a long-running lawsuit claiming he was illegally fired during Donald Trump’s first term after sending text messages that criticized Trump.
Strzok argued in the lawsuit that his FBI bosses had retaliated against him in order to placate Trump, who was outraged over texts that Strzok exchanged while investigating ties between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.
In a ruling Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said that, after several years gathering evidence and testimony from those involved in the 2018 decision to terminate the veteran counterintelligence agent, Strzok’s lawyers had failed to show that his dismissal violated his First Amendment rights.
Last year, the Justice Department agreed to pay former FBI special agent Peter Strzok a $1.2 settlement over the release of his anti-Trump text messages.
Peter Strzok sued the DOJ for ‘unlawfully disclosing’ his text messages to his paramour Lisa Page.
Strzok and Lisa Page discussed an “insurance policy” to keep Trump out of office.
“I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office…that there’s no way [Trump] gets elected…but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk,” Strzok text messaged to Page in an Aug. 15, 2016 exchange, referring to Andrew McCabe.
“It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40,” Strzok added.
Other profanity-laced text messages between Strzok and Page showed their contempt for Donald Trump.
Peter Strzok also said in a text message to Lisa Page “we’ll stop” Trump from becoming President.
Strzok was fired from the FBI in 2018 for violating bureau policies after he launched the ‘Crossfire Hurricane‘ Trump-Russia probe in July 2016.
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