Former deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was the official who approved releasing to the media hundreds of text messages — many of which were politically charged ― between high-ranking FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page in 2017, according to a Justice Department court filing released Friday night. Rosenstein said in an affidavit that he’d authorized the release of the messages on Dec. 12, 2017, the day before he provided testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, because he believed there was a “legitimate” need for Congress to see them. He said he also believed it inevitable that members of Congress would publicly disclose the messages and said he wanted to avoid the “additional harm” that could be caused by a cherry-picked release. “The disclosure obviously would adversely affect public confidence in the FBI, but providing the most egregious messages in one package would avoid the additional harm of prolonged selective disclosures and minimize the appearance of the Department concealing information that was embarrassing to the FBI,” Rosenstein wrote.

Source: Huffington Post January 19, 2020 13:41 UTC