The Culprit Behind the Missing FBI Texts Has Been Discovered (and It’s Not What You Think)

While everybody, including the president, are screaming and hyperventilating over the lost text messages of anti-Trump FBI agent Peter Strzok and his mistress, attorney Lisa Page.

While quite a bit has been released – enough to cause Trump’s devotees to howl with cries of “Conspiracy! Conspiracy!” – they’re still hoping that some string of messages will be such a white-hot, smoking gun, that there will be no doubt that the entire Russia probe was based on nothing more than FBI trickery.

Recent news that thousands of texts between Strzok and Page had disappeared sent lawmakers and internet sleuths alike on a mad dash to accuse the FBI of more wrongdoing.

The news being reported today is much less nefarious.

The bureau recently told the inspector general that the messages were not preserved as a result of misconfiguration issues related to software upgrades of FBI-provided Samsung 5 mobile phones that conflicted with the bureau’s archiving efforts.

Fox News, citing anonymous law enforcement officials, is now reporting that the glitch affected close to 10 percent of cellphones used by bureau employees.

And a portion of those texts swept up belonged to Strzok and Page.

On Tuesday, Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chairmen of the powerful Oversight and Government Reform and Judiciary committees, sent a letter to the Justice Department inspector general demanding to know why he only now disclosed the missing text messages. Lawmakers have asked to see exchanges from the period between Nov. 30, 2016, and July 28, 2017.

And now they have an answer.

For those that are wondering what kind of phone would cause such a glitch, it was a Samsung 5, conflicting with the bureau’s archiving method.

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