Source: Strzok Hadn’t Seen Evidence Of Collusion After 10 Months On Russia Probe

After 10 months of leading the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation, counterintelligence official Peter Strzok had not seen compelling evidence that President Trump or high-level campaign officials colluded with the Russian government, according to a person familiar with his thinking.

That account comports with a May 19, 2017 text exchange between Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page that was released earlier this week.

“You and I both know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely, I’d be there no question. I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern that there’s no big there there,” Strzok wrote to Page, his mistress.

Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, disclosed the “jaw-dropping” text earlier this week. He said that the message suggested that the FBI investigators had seen no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government.

It was unclear exactly what Strzok meant by the message, but the source close to Strzok affirmed that interpretation of the exchange to The Daily Caller.

The source spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

In the exchange with Page, Strzok was weighing whether to put in for a promotion at the FBI’s Washington Field Office or to go to work for Robert Mueller, the former FBI director who had been appointed special counsel two days before the text exchange.

If anyone had seen evidence of collusion by that point, it would have been Strzok. As deputy director for counterintelligence, he was picked to oversee the Russia investigation in July 2016, shortly after the release of the Democratic National Committee’s hacked emails.

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