LONG OVERDUE: Peter Strzok Escorted Off FBI Property

Well, if nothing else comes of the inspector general’s report on the Hillary Clinton email investigation, we know now that it had least had the effect of making the FBI just a little bit better. It accomplished that feat when it sent FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok into the unemployment line on Friday. It was reported by the Washington Post that the disgraced agent was escorted out of the building in the immediate wake of the report’s publication and “put on notice that the Bureau intends to fire him.” To which all we can say is: Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Oh wait, and one other thing: What the hell took you guys so long?

Strzok should have been thrown out on his butt the moment the first text messages between himself and Lisa Page were discovered. We credit Robert Mueller with removing him from the special counsel’s team at that time, but we are aghast at the fact that he was allowed to keep his employment with the FBI. What are the standards at the Bureau that someone can sneak around having an affair with another employee, trading messages that left almost no doubt that he was allowing his political opinions to interfere with his sworn oath to protect the Constitution?

After the IG report, though, FBI senior officials were really left with no options other than to kick Strzok to the curb. When you’re in charge of a major investigation into the Republican candidate’s campaign and you’re telling your lover that “we’ll stop” him from becoming president? Yeah, that’s not just grounds for dismissal, that’s grounds for prosecution and imprisonment. It is a stain on the Hoover Building that this guy was allowed to carry a badge for as long as he did.

In a statement that is nothing less than absurd, Strzok’s lawyer, Aitan Goelman, said that Strzok’s dismissal put the integrity of the FBI’s disciplinary process in doubt.

“All of this seriously calls into question the impartiality of the disciplinary process, which now appears tainted by political influence,” Goelman said. “Instead of publicly calling for a long-serving FBI agent to be summarily fired, politicians should allow the disciplinary process to play out free from political pressure. Our leaders and the public should be very concerned with how readily such influence has been allowed to undermine due process and the legal protections owed to someone who has served his country for so long. Pete Strzok and the American people deserve better.”

There is some truth to Goelman’s final comment, but you have to rearrange the words to find it: The American people deserve better than Pete Strzok.