One of the top FBI investigators, who only recently joined Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russia meddling in the 2016 Presidential election, has stepped down from Mueller’s team.
Peter Strzok is an FBI veteran who has spent much of his career working counterintelligence cases. It’s unclear why he’s stepped away from Mueller’s team at a time when they recently executed a search warrant on former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and enlisted a grand jury in Washington. According to ABC News, Strzok is now working in the Bureau’s human resources division.
Strzok is no stranger to high-profile cases:
As chief of the FBI’s counterespionage section last year, he helped oversee the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, and he took part in the FBI interview of the Democratic presidential candidate.
Within weeks of the Clinton probe ending, Strzok found his office facing a new challenge: investigating Russia’s alleged efforts to influence last year’s presidential election, including a cyberattack on the Democratic National Committee.
Strzok leaving Mueller’s investigation is the first public indication that the probe may be running into problems, as the investigation has fallen out of the 24-hour news cycle due to the specter of nuclear war and racially charged violence in Charlottesville.
Still, in the last week, investigators have made it known they want to question Trump’s long-time secretary, and news has leaked that Paul Manafort tipped off investigators to Donald Trump Jr.’s attempts to set up Russia meetings. And there have been reports that another campaign advisor tried to set up meetings with Russian government representatives.
(Via ABC News)