UPDATED: Dumb Strzok
As nearly as I can tell, Mark Steyn coined that moniker, but it's being used with new verve as people read the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) report on Peter Strzok . The OPR report was released in connection with Strzok's wrongful termination lawsuit.
Much of the report simply goes over details that are now well known. The report confirms that Strzok and Lisa Page were reprehensible individuals who applied different standards to themselves while they investigated others (notably, Hillary Clinton) for doing essentially the same things they did on a daily basis.
It's important to note that the OPR investigation did not deal with the whole issue of FISA--we'll be seeing OIG's report on that within about two weeks. Strzok and Page should figure into OIG's FISA report, although probably not to the same extent as people higher up the chain of command.
To me the one aspect of the report that may have significance for the Barr/Durham investigation is the portion of the report that deals with Strzok's Dereliction of Supervisory Duty. That has to do with Strzok's failure to conduct appropriate investigation in the Clinton email case after the NY FBI (NYO) came into possession of the Weiner laptop, containing hundreds of thousands of Clinton emails.
OPR found that Strzok's explanations simply didn't wash. Those explanations come under five of headings:
1) NYO's delay in processing the laptop
2) A lack of specific Information about what the NYO had discovered on the laptop
3) A belief that the laptop did not contain significant new information
4) The team's focus on the Russia investigation
5) Legal impediments to reviewing the material on the laptop
OPR dismisses all the supposed legal objections as lacking in substance--in fact, they are excuses rather than reasons. The whole point is that Strzok should have acted immediately to obtain a search warrant for the laptop--but didn't. Had he acted promptly the FBI would have been ready to review the material as the NYO completed processing it and would have been in a position to know exactly what had been discovered. The suggestion that he believed the laptop contained no significant new information is obviously absurd, although it does play into Comey's dismissal of Clinton's criminal behavior as "extremely careless."
A reading of the report shows that Strzok's real reason was #4--he regarded the new emails as just another "lead" to be disposed of, probably sometime in 2017 , i.e., after Clinton's election. He explicitly states that the "Russia" investigation--which is to say, the Trump investigation, the investigation of the man he elsewhere texted that the FBI would prevent from becoming president--was much more important.
This determination factors into 1) the unwarranted acceptance of the Steele "dossier" as predication for a full CI investigation as well as 2) the determination to focus on the new Trump administration. It goes toward proving that the investigations of Trump and his associates were based on bias and, significantly, led both to certain concrete investigative steps being taken as well as steps not being taken. This could factor into the larger conspiracy theory.
One other matter that I found remarkable. Comey, in footnote #26, states that in retrospect maybe he should have had two separate investigative teams rather than combining the Hillary email and "Russia" investigations on one team under Strzok.
Coming from a highly experienced prosecutor that's dumbfounding. I certainly hope Barr/Durham are paying attention to that and conducting interviews about that decision. Because it stinks.
UPDATE: Since we're on the topic of the Clinton emails, here's a link to an interview with Senator Ron Johnson. At the 1:45 mark Johnson states that his committee had been investigating the Clinton emails but "pretty much dropped it after the election, pretty much at the direction of President Trump, because he said, 'we don't prosecute people that we beat in elections.'"
Sen. Ron Johnson: "INDICATION" that "A NUMBER OF HIGH LEVEL FBI OFFICIALS" held Offsite Meetings