Yuri Gripas/Reuters
An FBI agent who served on special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, and who has been accused by Republicans of anti-Trump bias, said in a text message prior to joining the investigation into President Donald Trump and Russia that “my gut sense and concern is there’s no big there there.” Peter Strzok was removed from Mueller’s team after Mueller was informed of text messages from Strzok that criticized Trump a year earlier, during the election campaign. The new text message was released Tuesday by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Some Republicans in Congress have used Strzok’s messages to paint the FBI and Mueller’s team as biased against Trump. The president even accused Strzok of “treason” last month. Yet in his texts, Strzok also criticized prominent liberal figures such as former Hillary Clinton, Attorney General Eric Holder, and Sen. Bernie Sanders.