Former FBI special agent Peter Strzok’s wife discovered his affair with FBI lawyer Lisa Page on his phone in 2017, the Justice Department revealed in its response to his claims he was wrongfully fired.

The department filed a 151-page motion to dismiss the wrongful termination lawsuit Strzok filed in August, with the DOJ arguing Strzok betrayed the trust placed in him as a leader at the FBI as he helped lead high-profile investigations related to Hillary Clinton’s illicit private email server and any connections between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Strzok’s affair with Page was cited in a newly public 26-page letter sent by the FBI’s Candice Will, assistant director at the Office of Professional Responsibility, to Strzok in August 2018, attached as an exhibit to the DOJ’s filing. Will recommended Strzok be demoted and suspended for 60 days without pay, but FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich overruled her. The FBI fired Strzok the next day.

Will harshly criticized, among many things, the hundreds of Strzok-Page texts showing political bias against Trump and in favor of Clinton.

“The lapses in judgment embodied in those messages and others like them risked undermining public confidence in two of the Bureau’s highest-profile investigations,” the DOJ told the court on Monday. “And even more broadly, those lapses in judgment risked damaging the public trust in the FBI as a nonpartisan, even-handed, and effective law enforcement institution — trust that is essential to the FBI’s ability to vigorously enforce the nation’s laws without fear or favor.”

Those texts “cast a pall over the FBI’s Clinton email and Russia investigations and the work of the special counsel,” Will wrote. Strzok was removed from Mueller’s team in 2017 because of the texts.

Will also noted “security violations” stemming from Strzok and Page using personal devices to conduct FBI business, which Will noted was “replete with irony given the FBI’s criticism of Clinton for having done so.”

She also cited “dereliction of supervisory responsibility” by Strzok in prioritizing the Trump-Russia investigation over the Clinton investigation and his slow-walking of the review of Clinton aide Huma Abedin’s emails found in late September 2016 on the laptop of her husband, disgraced former New York Rep. Anthony Weiner.

“Your inaction contributed to a substantial investigative error and significantly tarnished the integrity of the bureau,” Will told Strzok.

“You admitted your wife gained access to your personal cell phone and email accounts in 2017,” Will wrote to Strzok in 2018. “You noted her access was ‘unusual and limited to a specific period of time’ and claimed she did not view any FBI case-related information.”

Will wrote Strzok claimed he didn’t have any work-related communications on his personal email account because he “double deleted” all such communications, but he declined DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s request to view that account.

In a footnote, Will cited a text exchange between Strzok and Page from April 4, 2017, where Strzok’s wife uncovered their affair.

“[My wife] has my phone. Read an angry note I wrote but didn’t send you. That is her calling from my phone. She says she wants to talk to [you]. Said we were close friends nothing more,” Strzok texted Page.

“Your wife left me a vm. Am I supposed to respond?” Page replied. “She thinks we’re having an affair. Should I call and correct her understanding? Leave this to you to address?”

Strzok said, “I don’t know. I said we were close friends and nothing more. She knows I sent you flowers. I said you were having a tough week.”

Strzok’s wife threatened to expose the affair.

“You and [Page] discussed that your wife had access to your devices and had located [Page]’s husband’s full name, found a hotel reservation ostensibly used by you and [Page] during a romantic encounter, had access to photographs from your phone, threatened to send all the information to [Page]’s husband, and also threatened to hire a private investigator,” Will wrote to Strzok in 2018. “[Page] told you to determine whether your wife might use recovery software to locate other evidence of your affair on your devices.”

Strzok’s August 2019 lawsuit alleged “the concerted public campaign to disparage and, ultimately, fire” him was enabled by a “deliberate and unlawful disclosure to the media” of his texts and by targeting by President Trump. Trump celebrated Strzok’s firing in a tweet.

His “protected political speech” should not have been a fireable offense, and his Fifth Amendment rights were violated because the FBI deprived him of his job “without due process,” Strzok claimed.

Horowitz criticized Strzok in his June 2018 report on the FBI’s inquiry into Clinton in 2016, noting he “did not have confidence that Strzok’s decision” on handling the Weiner laptop “was free from bias.”

Strzok also headed up the FBI’s Trump-Russia “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation, which he launched in late July 2016. Horowitz recently concluded an investigation into actions taken by the DOJ and the FBI during that time, and Attorney General William Barr and U.S. Attorney John Durham are looking into the origins of that inquiry.

