A text message between two FBI employees from September 2016 released by a Republican senator Wednesday says that then-President Barack Obama “wants to know everything we’re doing.”

What exactly the text refers to isn’t specified in the exchange. Associates of the FBI employees said it refers to preparation to brief Mr. Obama about Russian interference in that year’s election. Sen. Ron Johnson (R., Wis.), who released the text Wednesday as part of a 25-page report, said it raises questions about meddling by Mr. Obama in the federal Hillary Clinton email investigation, which wasn’t an active probe at that time.

The report from Mr. Johnson, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, highlights previously cited texts between Peter Strzok, a former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, and Lisa Page, a bureau lawyer with whom he was having an extramarital affair. Mr. Strzok supervised the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state and was to become the lead agent on special counsel Robert Mueller’s team investigating any ties between Trump associates and Russia.

Mr. Strzok was removed in July, however, after the Justice Department’s inspector general uncovered numerous text messages between Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page, in 2015 and 2016, that were highly critical of Mr. Trump. Since Mr. Strzok’s removal was disclosed in December, staffers for Mr. Johnson and other senators have been poring over the pair’s correspondence, and the Justice Department has turned over to Congress two batches of the pair’s texts.

While The Wall Street Journal obtained many of the text messages between the two staffers last week, reporting that they showed no overall conspiracy against Mr. Trump, Republicans and the president himself have cited the messages as evidence that the Russian probe amounts to a wider plot to undermine him.

U.S. investigators are looking into contacts between several current and former associates of Donald Trump and Russian individuals—some with direct ties to the Russian government or state-owned entities. WSJ's Niki Blasina provides a who's who of the Russians at the center of the investigations.

Mr. Trump tweeted Wednesday, “NEW FBI TEXTS ARE BOMBSHELLS!” He didn’t cite any particular text message.


In his Wednesday report, Mr. Johnson pointed to a Sept. 2, 2016, exchange in which Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page were discussing talking points for then-FBI Director James Comey to deliver to Mr. Obama.

“Potus wants to know everything we’re doing,” Ms. Page said, using the acronym for President of the United States. Mr. Johnson said the text raises questions about “the type and extent of President Obama’s personal involvement” in the Clinton investigation.

The associates of Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page said that exchange referred to the president’s wanting information on Russia election meddling, which the FBI was heavily involved in over that period. That exchange occurred just days before Mr. Obama met Russian President Vladimir Putin at a summit in China. Mr. Obama said in December 2016 that he had addressed the issue of tampering with the election process with Mr. Putin at that September meeting.

In August and September 2016, the FBI was no longer actively investigating the Clinton matter, after Mr. Comey had said that July that he was recommending no criminal charges be filed. In late October 2016, the FBI ramped up its investigation into Mrs. Clinton again when the bureau learned about a potential trove of new Clinton-related emails on the computer belonging to the husband of one of her aides. Mrs. Clinton and her allies have cited that announcement as a big factor in her election loss.


Mr. Johnson’s office didn’t immediately provide further comment about his assertions regarding the text messages.

The Wednesday report from Mr. Johnson looked anew at the July statement from Mr. Comey about Mrs. Clinton, suggesting that it softened the description of her actions. And it asked why the FBI didn’t use a grand jury to compel testimony but instead offered immunity deals.

“The information available to the Committee at this time raises serious questions about how the FBI applied the rule of law in its investigation of classified information on Secretary Clinton’s private email server,” the report said.

Mr. Trump cited Mr. Comey’s handling of the Clinton email probe when he fired the FBI director last May. That firing led to the appointment of Mr. Mueller a week later. That Mueller probe, which is also looking into potential obstruction of justice by the president and his aides, has returned indictments of two Trump campaign aides and guilty pleas by two other advisers.


Mr. Trump has denied obstruction and having worked with Russia. Moscow has denied election meddling.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder, who served under Mr. Obama though not during the Clinton probe, told reporters Wednesday at an event in Washington that the president never intervened in an investigation.

Write to Del Quentin Wilber at del.wilber@wsj.com