Rod Rosenstein authorized the release to the media of text messages between two highly placed FBI employees who exchanged criticism of Donald Trump during the 2016 election
, Strzok and Page regularly disparaged Trump and appeared to seek to reassure each other he could not be elected. Both called Trump an “idiot” and said Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton deserved to win.The texts also included murky discussions of an “insurance policy” to guard against Trump’s election.
In a formal declaration submitted as part of the government’s defense to Strzok’s suit, Rosenstein owned up to being the one who made the call. He said he did so in part because the texts' public release by members of Congress was inevitable in connection with testimony he was set to give to the House Judiciary Committee the following day.
“An agency cannot avoid Privacy Act liability for a disclosure actually made for an improper purpose by eliciting a sanitized after-the-fact rationale from an official who does not have all of the facts,” Goelman wrote. While Rosenstein said the disclosure to the media was aimed at putting the messages in context, Strzok and Page have noted that the set of fewer than 400 texts sent to the Hill and shared with reporters that night was just a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands of messages the pair exchanged on work topics as well as personal matters.
Justice Department lawyers argue that Rosenstein’s consultation with Winn — a career official — effectively nullifies the Privacy Act portion of Strzok’s suit. Under the law, officials can only be liable for monetary damages for a Privacy Act violation if they broke the law intentionally or willfully.
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