Peter Strzok, one of the Trump-hating FBI lovebirds, whose texts have since reverberated around the world, seems to have problems keeping up with classified protocol, that access to privileged information permitted only to the most trustworthy.

Released texts between Peter Strzok, the FBI agent who ran the investigation into former [s]ecretary of [s]tate Hillary Clinton's email server, and his lover, FBI attorney Lisa Page, reveal the strong possibility that Strzok used his cell phone in a SCIF – a strict violation of protecting classified information. Such a breach would compromise Strzok's ability to probe Clinton for mishandling classified info and show a lack of awareness about security breaches, which is what he was tasked to investigate. The text messages that the Senate released Wednesday show that Strzok texted his mistress on Aug. 11, 2016, "We're in Jims SCIF." SCIF stands for Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, and it is where the most sensitive classified material is kept and [stored]. SCIFs strictly bar all electronic equipment and require all people [to] place their phones in lockers before entering.

One hopes he was just lying or was merely in the vicinity of the place and texted it to sound important. Because why have these facilities at all with their added costs if top FBI counterintelligence agents aren't going to bother to follow the supposedly strict rules? The whole thing suggests a complete breakdown in standards at the upper levels of the bureau.

Maxwell Smart, call your office.

Once upon a time, the FBI was filled with straight-arrow types, G-Men, many of whom had Marine backgrounds and Marine habits of discipline. They were people who could be trusted with classified information. Those who couldn't were drummed out.

It seems that at least a vestige of that could be expected of the deputy director of counterintelligence, whose mission itself is protecting America's secrets.

What's more, Strzok's slovenliness came at a time when he was investigating Hillary Clinton for her wholesale failure to protect U.S. secrets by communicating on an illegal private server located in some guy's bathroom. Could anyone with standards that low have investigated Clinton objectively? This goes completely outside the political realm of things into the operational. If Strzok was doing this himself, how could he find any fault with Hillary?

The Daily Caller asks if FBI general counsel Jim Baker, a close ally of James Comey, knew about these breaches, and if he did, did he just stand there and say nothing, perhaps to protect the "family"? Because he was doing it himself? None of this sounds savory.

When FBI officials are chiefly loyal to each other and no longer loyal to the protocols of their trusted offices, it's time to clean house.