By Steve Neavling
Former FBI agent Peter Strzok lost his lawsuit claiming he was illegally fired for anti-Trump text messages during Donald Trump’s first term.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled Tuesday that Strzok’s attorneys failed to prove his 2018 termination violated his First Amendment rights, Politico reports. She stressed she was not deciding whether the firing “was the appropriate sanction,” only that the evidence, including a deposition of Trump, did not show his rights were violated.
Jackson also rejected Strzok’s claim that he had struck a binding deal with an FBI disciplinary official to accept a demotion and 60-day suspension before then-Deputy Director David Bowdich overruled the agreement and fired him.
Strzok, a 22-year veteran of the bureau, can appeal to the D.C. Circuit. His attorney, Aitan Goelman, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The discovery of Strzok’s texts, including one in which he said the FBI might “stop” Trump from becoming president, fueled years of attacks from Trump, who used the messages to paint the Russia investigation as a “witch hunt.”
An inspector general review later found no evidence that Strzok’s views influenced the probe. But the saga became tabloid fodder after it emerged Strzok had been exchanging many of the texts with FBI lawyer Lisa Page, with whom he was having an affair.
The Justice Department last year settled Strzok’s separate privacy lawsuit for $1.2 million and paid Page $800,000 in a related case.
