Fox News politics editor Chris Stirewalt is not as convinced that there is a grand deep state conspiracy at the FBI as some of his colleagues — and said Republicans are “throwing up chaff” to try and undermine the Russia investigation.

As President Donald Trump remarked on the missing messages exchanged between FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page — which outlets just reported have been retrieved by the Justice Department — Stirewalt spoke with Sandra Smith about the would-be scandal.

Republican lawmakers have pointed to the missing messages as evidence of a conspiracy within the FBI to cover up abuses committed by Strzok and Page, whose previously released texts have revealed they are no fans of the president.

Stirewalt pointed out to Smith that the “missing messages were part of an outage that affected more than 1,000 people in the FBI,” before throwing some cold water on the various theories swirling around the two FBI agents.

“As the Mueller investigation reaches it terminal phase, Republicans in Congress – especially on the intelligence committee — are throwing up chaff,” Stirewalt said.

“They’re throwing up anything that they can right now to try to occlude the matter,” he continued. “They have turned Peter Strzok from an FBI agent to the ‘Smoking Man,’ who has been part of everything in human history, and it’s all his fault.”

Stirewalt is, of course, referencing the “Smoking Man” character from The X-Files, the show’s mysterious and nefarious antagonist.

“They’re looking for ways to create distraction, and I understand why,” Stirewalt concluded.

Reports that the Justice Department has recovered Strzok’s texts come as Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) walked back his wild allegations about an exchange between the FBI agent and his lover.

Johnson sounded the alarm bells on Fox News earlier this week over texts he claimed revealed corruption at the highest levels of the FBI — and “secret”anti-Trump meetings held between the two agents. Johnson confessed on Thursday that the exchange about “secret meetings” could have been a joke.

Watch above, via Fox News.

[image via screengrab]

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