Upcoming Strzok Book To Launch New Attack on Trump
Peter Strzok, the former FBI counterintelligence investigator fired over anti-Trump text messages, is set to release a book in September that claims President Donald Trump is compromised by the Russian government.
“Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump” is due out Sept. 8, publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books & Media said in a statement to The Associated Press.
The book will offer an insider’s view on some of the most sensational investigations in modern American history, including the probe into Trump’s 2016 campaign.
“Russia has long regarded the United States as its ‘Main Enemy,’ and I spent decades trying to protect our country from their efforts to weaken and undermine us,” Strzok said Tuesday in a statement accompanying the book announcement.
“In this book,” he added, “I use that background to explain how the elevation by President Trump and his collaborators of Trump’s own personal interests over the interests of the country allowed Putin to succeed beyond Stalin’s wildest dreams, and how the national security implications of Putin’s triumph will persist through our next election and beyond.”
Strzok was fired from the FBI in August 2018, though he has since sued over the termination. In a statement announcing the book, the publishing company said “the Trump administration used his private expression of political opinions to force him out.”
“But by that time,” the statement added, “Strzok had seen more than enough to convince him that the commander in chief had fallen under the sway of America’s adversary in the Kremlin.”
The publisher said that in the book, Strzok “grapples with a question that should concern every U.S. citizen: When a president appears to favor personal and Russian interests over those of our nation, has he become a national security threat?”
As a senior counterintelligence agent with more than 20 years at the FBI, Strzok helped lead the investigation into whether Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton mishandled classified information as secretary of state.
The FBI ultimately recommended against criminal charges.
He also played a pivotal role in the Russia investigation, interviewing former national security adviser Michael Flynn about his contacts with the Russian ambassador during the presidential transition period.
Strzok briefly served on special counsel Robert Mueller’s team but was removed from his role after the Justice Department inspector general flagged derogatory and pejorative text messages about Trump that Strzok sent and received during the 2016 campaign.
Once the texts were made public, Trump alleged that Strzok and others in the FBI had plotted against his campaign and had even committed treason — an accusation that Strzok’s lawyer rejected as “beyond reckless.”
The text messages were exchanged with FBI lawyer Lisa Page.
At a fiery, daylong congressional hearing in July 2018, Strzok insisted that he never allowed personal viewpoints to influence his work.
The text messages featured prominently in the inspector general investigations into the Clinton and Russia probes, but the watchdog office said it did not find evidence in either case that the actions that Strzok and other FBI officials took were motivated by political bias.
Former FBI Director James Comey and former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe have each released books that describe aspects of the Trump investigation.
Andrew Weissmann, a former Justice Department prosecutor who served on Mueller’s team, is also due to publish a book in September.
The Western Journal has reviewed this Associated Press story and may have altered it prior to publication to ensure that it meets our editorial standards.
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