Peter Strzok, welcome to The Daily Social Distancing Show.
(chuckles) Thanks so much for having me.
-It's good to be here. -So, you've written a book
that even today is being name-checked
by the president of the United States,
Donald J. Trump.
He's not your biggest fan,
and clearly, by your book, you are not a fan of his.
In many ways, for him, you are the face
of the deep state that he constantly talks about.
Why did you write the book,
and what do you hope the book is meant to achieve?
So, the reason I wrote the book
was to talk about the counterintelligence threat
that Donald Trump poses to this day.
Why in the FBI in 2016 we were so very concerned
about his relationship with the government of Russia.
And not just his but all the people around him.
And to point out to the reader
that that threat, that problem didn't stop in 2016.
Obviously, Director Mueller kept going,
and the problem, in fact, stays till this day.
And, so, I wanted to shine a light on that.
There's no denying that your role
in this investigation
and your role in the Donald Trump-Russia saga
has definitely been marred by, you know,
text messages that the public has seen of yours,
your opinions on Hillary Clinton
and your opinions on Donald Trump.
Do you think that you're the right person
to say to the public, "Here I am, shining a light,"
when Donald Trump will use you
as the example of the deep state?
Y-Yeah, I sure do, and here's why.
Uh, in the first place, every FBI agent,
most every government employee has opinions.
I have them. Everybody I worked with did,
and we talk about those in private.
But the point is that every single day,
all of us set that aside when we go to work.
And part of what has been so corrosive
about all this whole idea of having a deep state
is, in my experience, it's absolutely false.
And then the second thing I'd point to,
because I understand people might have concerns,
is this has been looked at up and down and left and right.
There have been two inspector general investigations.
There have been multiple U.S. attorneys,
all kinds of congressional committees looking at it.
And all of them, all of them have found at the end of the day
that me and everybody else,
that our actions were free of political bias
or any sort of improper consideration
and that we were doing the right thing for the right reasons.
I don't believe in a deep state. I don't...
I'm not a big conspiracy theory person
in any way, shape or form, but I do understand
how it may look to somebody, especially a Trump voter,
when Peter Strzok has e-mails saying,
"We're gonna s... We need to stop this person."
And then, more importantly, recently, an FBI lawyer
was found to be doctoring documents.
Once somebody is forging a document to--
you know, to go with their bias, I mean,
that-that shows you that people don't just leave
their opinions at the door, doesn't it?
Right, but when you look at what happened to him,
I mean, he is paying a severe, severe price for his penalty.
There is no room in the FBI ever
for any falsehood, for any doctoring evidence.
And when you do that, you're gonna be f-- held accountable.
And that's exactly what you saw.
To the broader point of--
I understand how people might look at this and say,
"Well, he had pretty strong opinions."
But then let's go back to 2016.
There were things that I knew and others knew
and still knew to this day that, if we had let it out,
it would have really, really damaged Trump's campaign.
Never happened. Let's also look at what happened
with all the-- the speech that Director Comey gave
about Secretary Clinton,
-about all the things... -But-but wait, but wait,
but wait. If-if I may interrupt you there.
Let's-let's take a step back. You see,
so, I feel like that statement you've just made
presents the veneer of impartiality,
'cause if you have something that you can't release
on Donald Trump that the public,
if they knew about Donald Trump, wouldn't vote for him
but you can't use that, then why even tell the people about that?
Well, because there's a lie being made.
Uh, there's a false accusation that Pete Strzok is biased.
And so if I'm going to defend against that,
I need to be able to say, "Hey, that's not true."
And you say, "Well, show me evidence."
And so the evidence is, hey,
the things we did in the fall
unequivocally hurt Secretary Clinton.
They absolutely-- By not saying something,
they helped Donald Trump.
Now, there's been all kinds of things
that have been declassified by this administration.
Unsurprisingly, a lot of those have been very, very favorable
in the s-- to President Trump.
-Mm-hmm. -I can't decide, and it wouldn't be appropriate to.
But if I'm challenged to prove my impartiality,
the way I have to do that is to present the evidence
of what exists.
And some of that is known now, right?
We know what Director Mueller found.
We know all these people that he prosecuted.
-Right. -That's the sort of thing I'm talking about.
We knew that in the fall. Everybody knows it now.
But if we were to talk about all those cases,
all those people that pled guilty to us
about hiding their contacts with the Russians,
that would have been very damaging.
And, of course, the United States and everybody can see
the truth of what we knew at the time.
I've always been fascinated by how, in American history,
you always read these stories of how the FBI was surveilling
or even interfering in the acts--
the, you know-- the-the actions of protestors.
I mean, everybody from Jane Fonda to Martin Luther King Jr.
When you look at the protests that are happening today,
would you say that protestors need to be wary
of the FBI looking into or interfering in their lives?
Or is that something that-that changed over time?
Or does it just depend on who is running the FBI?
I think it's always something to be aware of.
Look, I think the FBI is bound by regulation
and a tradition of respecting civil liberties.
But that came at a heavy price.
As you pointed out, there were extraordinary abuses
throughout the '70s, which culminated
in the Church and Pike Committees,
things like oversight reform,
that really codified ways
that would prevent the FBI from behaving that way.
And that began and became absorbed in the FBI's culture,
which exists today.
So I'm not worried about the FBI overstepping.
What I do worry about
is when you see some of these other actors,
various entities within the Department of Homeland Security
and other elements, who don't have
a traditional, sort of, domestic... (chuckles)
you know, investigative role,
who are being thrust into situations
where they don't have the background,
a traditional mission,
or rules and regulations to monitor
and constrain that activity.
Everybody may be trying to do the right thing,
but if you don't have that sort of regulation,
the same sort of oversight, there's a lot of risk there.
And so I'm also concerned that Congress has an oversight role,
but there's been a tremendous amount of tension right now
between the executive branch and Congress and that oversight.
So I think that's a valid concern.
I think that's something everybody should be looking at
and making sure that we are behaving--
I say "we"-- that the government is behaving
in a way that the American people expect
based on our past dialogue.
You have now had quite the journey,
you know, in and out of law enforcement.
What would you change if you could go back?
What are the things that you look back at as an agent
and say, "Man, that's where I-I didn't do the right thing
"or I didn't do it in the right way
and I should have done that differently"?
Hmm. (chuckles)
Obviously, first and foremost, I wish I-I never would've sent
the damn texts that I did.
I mean, that's the obvious easy answer.
But I think, going back--
It's a great question.
I wish that we would have had a better idea
of what was going on with social media
and the vulnerabilities that presented before we did.
We saw on the terrorism side
that, uh, people like Anwar al-Awlaki
were using YouTube to really good effect
in reaching into the homeland
and radicalizing people without any sort of formal meetings.
And while we appreciated
that was a tough terrorism problem,
none of us-- not me, not anybody else-- said,
"Well, wow, what if the Russians started using YouTube,
"Twitter, Facebook to start doing the same thing?
"But instead of trying to recruit somebody
"to a terrorist organization,
"what if they were trying to use it
to persuade people or plant disinformation?"
And, of course, that's exactly what they did.
So I wish we would have seen that sooner.
I think we're getting up to speed now.
But, you know, that's-that's the biggest thing
that, uh-- that I'd point to.
Your book is really interesting.
Your journey is one of the craziest in American history.
And because there are still investigations
and Donald Trump is still president,
I guess the saga will continue.
Peter Strzok, thank you so much for joining me on the show.
Trevor, great to be here. Thank you.