Trump, Giuliani Distort Facts on IG Report
President Donald Trump and one of his lawyers, Rudy Giuliani, distorted the findings of a new report about the forensic recovery of text messages exchanged between Peter Strzok, a former FBI senior counterintelligence agent, and Lisa Page, a former FBI lawyer:
- Trump tweeted that “19,000 Texts between Lisa Page and her lover, Peter S of the FBI … were just reported as being wiped clean and gone.” The texts are not “gone.” Trump has it backward: The Department of Justice inspector general’s office said that it had recovered about 20,000 text messages sent and received by Page and Strzok on FBI-issued Samsung phones.
- The president also tweeted that the 19,000 text messages “were purposely & illegally deleted,” and Giuliani claimed they were “destroyed.” But the IG has said it found no evidence that “any employee” intentionally deleted text messages, blaming a software glitch that failed to preserve text messages from FBI-issued Samsung phones.
The president is referring to an , but that report — and a in June — both refute the
