Former FBI agent Peter Strzok said Friday that indictments of former President Donald Trump’s associates could be possible following the announcement of a special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Garland appointed Jack Smith, a career prosecutor who once headed the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, to serve as special counsel overseeing investigations covering the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol building and the handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida estate, Friday.
“I think that’s certainly one of the implications,” Strzok told “Deadline: White House” host Nicolle Wallace in response to a question about whether Trump was under a criminal investigation. “A lot of the criticism of what special counsel Mueller did, people don’t understand, were key to what he was limited to do by the scope of his appointment order. And I’m very interested to see if DOJ does publish … the new special counsel’s order, because that will give us an idea how broad the scope of his investigations are.”
Garland cited potential conflicts of interest due to the presidential campaigns of both Trump, who announced his third bid for the White House Tuesday, and President Joe Biden during the Friday announcement of Smith’s appointment.
“Based on recent developments, including the former president’s announcement that he’s a candidate for president in the next election, and the sitting president’s stated intention to be a candidate as well, I have concluded that it’s in the public’s interest to appoint a special counsel,” Garland said.
“From the attorney general’s comments, it certainly to me implied that it included Donald Trump’s conduct, but more importantly, as importantly, it included potentially a large number of other people around him,” Strzok told Wallace. “Folks like Mark Meadows, Roger Stone, Ali Alexander, you know, Michael Flynn, Patrick Bern, and Roger Stone, on and on and on and on. These folks who were at, John Eastman and Jeffrey Clark, these people who were at the very close circle around Trump, from what the attorney general said, all of those investigations, and any potential prosecutions relating to those investigations, are also going to be taken on by this new special counsel.”
FBI agents raided Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8 in connection with the investigation into the documents, prompting outrage from Republicans.
The FBI fired Strzok on Aug. 13, 2018, over texts to FBI attorney Lisa Page, his mistress, in which Strzok disparaged then-presidential candidate Donald Trump while investigating alleged collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia.
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