President Donald Trump criticized FBI agent Peter Strzok in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. | Mario Tama/Getty Images Trump accuses FBI agent removed from Mueller probe of committing 'treason'

President Donald Trump accused an FBI agent formerly involved in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation of committing “treason.”

In a wide-ranging interview with The Wall Street Journal, Trump lambasted the FBI agent, Peter Strzok, who was removed in July as a top investigator on Mueller’s team after it was revealed he had exchanged texts with another FBI agent criticizing the president.


In one exchange, Strzok texted: “I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office — that there’s no way he gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40."

That exchange prompted Trump on Thursday to accuse Strzok of treason.

“What went on with the FBI, where a man is tweeting to his lover that if [Hillary Clinton] loses, we’ll essentially go back to the — we’ll go to the insurance policy, which is — if they lose, we’ll go to phase 2, and we’ll get this guy out of office,” Trump told the newspaper. “I mean, this is the FBI we’re talking about. I think that is — that is treason. See, that’s treason right there.”

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“By the way, that’s a treasonous act. What he tweeted to his lover is a treasonous act,” Trump said.

Strzok's lawyer, Aitan Goelman, told the Journal that it's "beyond reckless for the president of the United States to accuse Pete Strzok, a man who has devoted his entire adult life to defending this country, of treason. It should surprise no one that the president has both the facts and the law wrong.”

According to news reports, Strzok and the agent he was texting, Lisa Page, were having an affair at the time they were texting each other.

