Two former senior FBI employees have reached a tentative agreement with the Justice Department to settle in part their related lawsuits alleging that they were illegally targeted for retribution by the Trump administration after the FBI investigated Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, according to a court filing Tuesday. In a two-page filing, lawyers for former senior FBI agent Peter Strzok, former FBI lawyer Lisa Page and the Justice Department said they have reached a tentative agreement to resolve allegations that the department violated the two employees’ privacy rights when, in December 2017, it leaked their politically charged text messages criticizing Donald Trump while they were having an affair, the Washington Post reports. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson agreed to freeze the long-running case until June 28 to allow the sides to reach final written terms.
Page filed suit in December 2019, accusing the FBI and the Justice Department of violating the Privacy Act by showing reporters a document containing nearly 400 texts between her and Strzok, in which the pair discussed their intense dislike of Trump and their fear that he might win the presidency. The messages, which came to light in December 2017, fueled claims that the FBI was prejudiced against Trump and became ammunition for scores of angry tweets and public statements by the president and his supporters. Strzok had filed suit earlier in August 2019, claiming he was unfairly terminated for criticizing the president and seeking reinstatement and back pay. In Tuesday’s filing, attorneys for Strzok and the Justice Department’s civil division, federal programs branch, said they had not resolved his claims that his First Amendment and due process rights under the Constitution were violated, saying they would brief the court shortly on how each side wished to proceed. Page left the FBI in 2018, and Strzok was fired that August. Both were assigned before the 2016 election to investigate Russian interference into Trump’s campaign and whether former secretary of state Hillary Clinton broke the law by using a private email server. The exposure of their anti-Trump messages in 2017 fueled Republican allegations that FBI bias drove the Russia probe. An inspector general’s investigation found no evidence that their opinions affected their work; a special counsel appointed by Trump was more critical of the FBI but agreed that investigating Russian interference was warranted.