The FBI appears to confirm in a recent letter that two officials who traded disparaging remarks about President Trump still have top secret security clearances.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., published a letter Wednesday from FBI Assistant Director Gregory Brower, who wrote "[a]ll FBI employees must maintain a Top Secret security clearance" in response to an inquiry about FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page.

"BREAKING: FBI admits that @realDonaldTrump haters still have Top Secret security clearances which allows them to access sensitive private information!" Paul wrote on Twitter.

A spokeswoman for the FBI's national press office declined to comment on whether Paul's interpretation is accurate.

Strzok and Page briefly worked on special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of possible Trump campaign collusion with Russia. Strzok, who also reportedly played a key role in the FBI's exoneration of Hillary Clinton, was reassigned to human resources last year after his text messages with Page were discovered, revealing a pro-Clinton and anti-Trump bias.



BREAKING: FBI admits that @realDonaldTrump haters still have Top Secret security clearances which allows them to access sensitive private information! pic.twitter.com/T5rxuzekyk — Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) April 11, 2018

Defenders of Strzok and Page argue that some messages, including a reference to an FBI secret society and an insurance policy, are misunderstood out of context, and that the couple's conversations amounted to lawful conservation among people having a romantic affair.

Brower declined to address a second question asked by Paul about whether Strzok and Page still have access to records intercepted under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of other classified information.

He wrote that "the FBI does not reveal the specific accesses granted to particular employees" because of "security concerns and law enforcement sensitivities."

Brower's letter to Paul was dated March 30, in response to a letter Paul wrote in January, when the role of Strzok and Page was a major news story, amid release of cryptic references to Trump and the temporary loss of messages sent between Dec. 14, 2016 and May 17, 2017. The messages later were recovered by the Justice Department's inspector general, who is investigating.