Peter Strzok claim about Russia investigation origins contradicted by Mueller and DOJ inspector general
Fired FBI special agent Peter Strzok’s latest claims about the events leading to the bureau’s opening of the Trump-Russia investigation are contradicted by the timelines presented in reports by special counsel Robert Mueller and DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz. In a new interview ahead of the release of his book, Strzok claimed that Australian diplomat Alexander Downer was spurred to inform the U.S. government about a May 2016 conversation he had in a London wine bar with George Papadopoulos, in which the Trump campaign associate mentioned that Russia might have dirt on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, after hearing Donald Trump’s controversial July 2016 comment: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.” But Mueller and Horowitz concluded that Australia informed the United States of this conversation on July 26, 2016, which is one day before Trump’s press conference comments about Russia.
"Papadopoulos told them that somebody on the Trump campaign had received an offer that said the Russians had material that would be damaging to Hillary Clinton and to Obama, and they offered to coordinate the release of that information in a way that would help the Trump campaign," Strzok told CBS's Sunday Morning. “The Australians didn't make much of it until Trump made this appeal about Hillary Clinton's emails,” CBS News national security correspondent David Martin said, adding, “Those Australian diplomats heard that and contacted the FBI.” “When they saw that statement by Trump, that triggered the memory of the conversation they had with Papadopoulos,” Strzok said. ”So, Donald Trump, with his own words, brought this investigation down on himself?" Martin asked. “According to what the foreign government told us, yes,” Strzok replied. But Strzok’s claims are contradicted by the two men who led deep-dive investigations into the Trump-Russia inquiry, which stated that the Australian informed the U.S. of his concerns a day before Trump made his comments. “The foreign government conveyed this information to the U.S. government on July 26, 2016, a few days after WikiLeaks’s release of Clinton-related emails,” Mueller’s April 2019 report stated. “The FBI opened its investigation of potential coordination between Russia and the Trump Campaign a few days later based on the information.”
The Justice Department's independent watchdog offered a similar assessment months later. “On July 26, 2016, four days after Wikileaks publicly released hacked emails from the DNC, the [Friendly Foreign Government] official spoke with a U.S. government official in the European city about an ‘urgent matter’ … The FFG official informed the USG official of the meeting with Papadopoulos,” Horowitz wrote in December 2019, adding that the U.S. government official said Downer claimed that Papadopoulos “suggested the Trump team had received some kind of suggestion from Russia that it could assist this process with the anonymous release of information during the campaign that would be damaging to Mrs. Clinton." Horowitz added that “on July 27, 2016, the USG official called the FBI's Legal Attache and [redacted] in the European city to her office and provided them with the FFG information.”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/peter-strzok-claim-about-russia-investigation-origins-contradicted-by-robert-mueller-and-doj-inspector-general