Tell us more about that "insurance policy," Mr. Strozt!

The Left is whining about the Inspector General releasing some of the texts between Peter Strozk and Lisa Page. “They were private,” says the Left. Mollie Hemingway in the Federalist demolishes that argument in two sentences:

The text messages released to Congress were exchanged by FBI agents on FBI phones dealing with FBI matters. In no world is this private communication.

But, aren’t leaks bad? Mollie answers,

Perhaps a year into a story based on nothing but a leak campaign against Trump officials is a bit late to express concern about communications between intelligence officials and reporters, particularly when in this case the emails were released to Congress.

But aren’t these just totally normal political opinions?

Jerry Nadler, the House Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat, said, “Peter Strzok wasn’t saying anything about Donald Trump that the majority of Americans weren’t thinking.”

It’s a cute line that was parroted by many in the media. And it’s true that FBI agents are allowed to have political opinions. But there are multiple problems with the sentiment, including that “the majority of Americans” aren’t tasked with investigating one, much less both, of the major-party candidates in a presidential election.

And if it were true that there were no problem with these totally normal political opinions, why did special counsel Mueller remove Strzok from the probe when he discovered the texts?

Well, it doesn’t really matter, because Strozk was kicked off Mueller’s team in July!

That’s true, but it doesn’t explain why Mueller waited so long to tell inquiring members of Congress about the change, and it tells us nothing about the important role Strzok played in the year prior to his departure. He was a key investigator in the Hillary Clinton probe into her mishandling of classified information. He opened the Russia-Trump probe. He interviewed most of the key players and shaped the investigations. Did Mueller review any aspect of his handling of the Russia probe? And why did news of the circumstances surrounding his departure only leak after Mike Flynn pled guilty?

Can’t we just ignore this?

Of course, the most common media response to the texts has been to downplay or even ignore them. The New York Times begrudgingly covered the story, but somehow managed not to mention the “insurance policy” text.

…The Wall Street Journal‘s Kim Strassel states the obvious: “Press is focusing (deliberately) on Strzok texts expressing hostility to Trump, and noting it is OK for agents to have political opinions. Press needs to to focus on the messages suggesting he’d act on that hostility (‘insurance policy’)–which is not OK.”

Read more here.