Peter Strzok and the Russia Collusion Hoax, Revisited

Within the last few days, the letter that the FBI sent to Peter Strzok when it fired him has been made public. The letter is dated August 8, 2018, and was signed by Deputy Director David Bowdich. Its rebuke to Strzok is stinging and unqualified. Here it is:

The language is largely quotable:

[I]t is difficult to fathom the repeated, sustained errors of judgment you made while serving as the lead agent in two of the most high profile investigations in the country.
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[Y]our sustained pattern of bad judgement in the use of an FBI device has called into question for many the decisions made during both the Clinton e-mail investigation and the initial states of the Russia Collusion investigation. In short, your repeated selfishness has called into question the credibility of the entire FBI.
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In my 23 years in the FBI, I have not seen a more impactful series of missteps which called into question the entire organization and more thoroughly damaged the reputation of the organization.

And yet, Peter Strzok is regarded as a hero by many Democrats. Check out his GoFundMe page, where he collected over $450,000 in donations from liberals. (Conservatives are often barred from using the GoFundMe platform, but the site had no problem with raising money for Strzok.) This raises the broader issue of the role of the Russia Collusion Hoax in modern history.

One might liken it to France’s Dreyfus Affair. In the end, there was no doubt about the fact that Dreyfus was innocent, and was vilely framed for political reasons. And yet, as Proust records, those who were pro-Dreyfus–those who were right–were never quite welcome in polite society. For many years, against all the evidence, some continued to insist that Dreyfus was guilty.

We see something similar with the Russia Collusion Hoax. Can you name a single Democrat who has expressed regret at the perpetration of the fraud? I can’t. Have the main organs that propagated the hoax–the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, and the FBI and CIA–apologized, or done anything to bring about an accounting and make amends? No: the firing of Peter Strzok and one or two others by the FBI comes closest. And polls indicate that a great many Democrats still believe in the hoax. No doubt that is why so many were willing to pony up cash to support Peter Strzok.

In my opinion, the Russia Collusion Hoax continues to hang over our public life. It will continue to cast a shadow until Democrats are finally willing to admit that the whole thing was a lie, intentionally perpetrated by them and by their press organs and captive agencies, a lie that continued long after the truth was known.

But I suspect that acknowledgement will never come.

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