Flashback: Donald Trump is wrong. My client Peter Strzok is a patriot, not a 'sick loser.' Donald Trump is attacking Peter Strzok, the FBI and the Justice Department in order to pre-emptively discredit the results of Robert Mueller's Russia investigation.

Aitan Goelman | Opinion contributor

Show Caption Hide Caption Trump says IG report 'totally' exonerates him President Donald Trump says the Justice Department watchdog report on the Clinton email probe shows the FBI was biased against him, and he called former FBI Director James Comey "the worst FBI director in history, by far, there's nobody close." (June 15)

Editor's note: This column was originally published on June 19, 2018.

The president of the United States used the term “sick loser” Sunday to describe a man who has helped keep our country safe for more than two decades. The tweet followed months of attacks on this Army veteran and law enforcement official, including one in which the president accused him of treason. So what monstrous act did this man commit? He spoke his mind.

Pete Strzok, who is my client, served four years in the 101st Airborne and then joined the FBI, where he has spent the past 22 years working to protect this country’s national security. His skill and commitment led him to be picked as one of the lead agents in the Russian spy ring “illegals” case, and he has led numerous Chinese espionage investigations and was involved in the FBI’s 9/11 effort and many other highly sensitive cases. So it’s no surprise that every agent, prosecutor and U.S. intelligence community officer who has spoken publicly about Pete has described him in glowing terms — as independent, highly professional, truly skilled and without bias of any kind.

So what’s the reason for this barrage of attacks on his character and this effort to portray him as a hyperpartisan member of a "deep state" conspiracy that is determined to thwart the will of the American people?

Make no mistake: It is all part of a calculated political strategy to demonize Pete and the men and women of the FBI and the Department of Justice in order to pre-emptively discredit the results of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

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Unfortunately, Pete inadvertently provided ammunition to this effort by expressing personal political views to another FBI employee. In several of these text messages, he was critical of then-candidate Donald Trump.

But as Pete has played by the rules — fully cooperating in an investigation and now agreeing to freely testify before Congress — the president and his allies have done the opposite. They have spent months cynically taking these texts out of context and saying that one- or two-word snippets somehow prove that the FBI investigations of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the Russia probe itself, were biased.

The problem is, such a conclusion was proved false by the independent Inspector General investigation. And, in fact, investigators determined that Pete had repeatedly pushed for more aggressive action in the Clinton investigation, sometimes bringing him into open conflict with the Justice Department’s more cautious approach.

Despite the obvious partisan gamesmanship going on, the reality is that Pete did nothing more than express his personal opinions in private conversations with a friend and colleague. And what his attackers fail to ever mention is that, among the many other texts, Pete criticizes a range of both Democratic and Republican figures, including Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Loretta Lynch.

The texts reveal that Pete is one of a rare, vanishing, breed: a centrist. In one text, Pete labels himself a “Conservative Dem;” in another he reports on someone guessing he was a vote for John Kasich, the Republican governor of Ohio.

But his accusers aren’t entirely wrong — bias does exist in one area. Pete is deeply and passionately biased toward American democracy and the need for it to be vigorously protected. The messages show that our national security is paramount in Pete Strzok’s mind, work and convictions. His texts are fiercely critical of foreign adversaries, such as Russia, and foreign rivals, such as China, and passionately protective of the United States. And they show his tremendous pride in having the opportunity to serve the country he loves, declaring in one: “I’m glad I’m on Team USA.”

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Other accusations leveled at Pete are just as absurd as the text-related attacks. There is no truth to the suggestion that he “back-burnered” the analysis of Anthony Weiner’s laptop as part of the Clinton email investigation. As the IG report noted, Pete considered the Russia investigation a priority at that point. But as the report also noted, when he learned that the laptop might contain relevant Clinton-related emails, he immediately directed two of his most experienced investigators, neither of whom was working on the Russia investigation, to go to New York to determine its content.

The New York office told the agents their trip would be premature because the laptop was still being processed, and they ended up not going. But subsequent delays in the forensic examination were entirely the result of bureaucratic snafus and had nothing to do with any action by Pete.

With all of the texts released and the independent investigation completed, it’s clear that Pete is far from the monster that political operatives have self-servingly tried to create. But if what Pete has done in 20 years of law enforcement is not enough to convince you, consider what he hasn’t done.

In October 2016 Pete was one of a handful of people at the FBI who knew the full scope and gravity of the Russia investigation. Significantly harming — even stopping — the Trump presidency could have been accomplished by leaking that information to the news media. Instead, Pete and others at the FBI went out of their way to prevent leaks and, in the weeks before the election, actively ensured that news reports didn’t overplay the seriousness of the investigation.

These aren’t the actions of a partisan conspirator, they are the actions of an American patriot.

Aitan Goelman, a former federal prosecutor, is a partner at the law firm Zuckerman Spaeder LLP. He represents Special Agent Peter Strzok.