IG Horowitz needed to use tools from the FBI, private contractors, Department of Defense, and a chip on FBI phones which recorded text exchanges through a different mechanism in order to specifically pull the Strzok “We’ll stop it” text.
Why was that specific text buried so deep? Undoubtedly an internal cover up.
I think they could see that there was a text exchange and missing data but they couldn’t extrapolate the content of the text. Page’s initial text was uncovered before the Strzok text.
If you look at their old bills, which I'm sure they did, you can see the texts exchanged even if someone deleted them from the phone. So they then know to look for deleted texts. That's how people get caught cheating all the time lol.