Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents tasked by fired former Director James Comey to take down Donald Trump during and after the 2016 election were so concerned about the agency’s potentially illegal behavior that they purchased liability insurance to protect themselves less than two weeks before Trump was inaugurated president, previously hidden FBI text messages show. The explosive new communications and internal FBI notes were disclosed in federal court filings today from Sidney Powell, the attorney who heads Michael Flynn’s legal defense team.
“[W]e all went and purchased professional liability insurance,” one agent texted on Jan. 10, 2017, the same day CNN leaked details that then-President-elect Trump had been briefed by Comey about the bogus Christopher Steele dossier. That briefing of Trump was used as a pretext to legitimize the debunked dossier, which was funded by the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign and compiled by a foreign intelligence officer who was working for a sanctioned Russian oligarch.
“Holy crap,” an agent responded. “All the analysts too?”
“Yep,” the first agent said. “All the folks at the Agency as well.”
“[C]an I ask who are the most likely litigators?” an agent responded. “[A]s far as potentially suing y’all[?]”
“[H]aha, who knows….I think [t]he concern when we got it was that there was a big leak at DOJ and the NYT among others was going to do a piece,” the first agent said.
While the names of the agents responsible for the texts are redacted, the legal filing from Powell, quoting communications from the Department of Justice (DOJ), states that the latest document production included handwritten notes and texts from Peter Strzok, Andrew McCabe, Lisa Page, and FBI analysts who worked on the FBI’s investigation of Flynn.
Agents also said they were worried about how a new attorney general might view the actions taken against Trump during the investigation. Shortly after then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) was confirmed to be Trump’s new attorney general, congressional Democrats, media, and Obama holdovers within DOJ immediately moved to force Sessions to recuse himself from overseeing the department’s investigations against Trump.
“[T]he new AG might have some questions….then yada yada yada…we all get screwed,” one agent wrote.
The FBI agents also discussed how the investigation’s leadership was consumed with conspiracy theories rather than evidence.