CNN and MSNBC have raised eyebrows by providing significant airtime to fired ex-FBI official Peter Strzok to defend the raid of former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, as critics feel the disgraced former agent is the last person who should be dispatched to claim an investigation is unbiased.
Strzok was removed from the Robert Mueller Russia investigation in 2017 and fired by the FBI in 2018 in part for exchanging anti-Trump texts with his lover Lisa Page while overseeing critical investigations. Yet he has been put in a position to defend the raid of Mar-a-Lago on a near-daily basis.
Strzok has appeared on CNN at least eight times, and MSNBC at least another seven times since the raid on Aug. 8. He appeared at least 15 times in the first 15 days following the raid, appearing on at least one of the networks an average of once a day since it occurred. Strzok has either been part of discussion panels – where he wasn't always onscreen – or in one-on-one interviews totaling approximately 184 minutes of airtime on the two channels in that period, Fox News Digital calculated.
"Peter Strzok enjoys the rare distinction of being one of the only people to ever be fired from the federal government for performance. That alone should disqualify him from ever appearing in the media as some kind of expert," Grabien Media founder Tom Elliott told Fox News Digital.
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"Yet time and again CNN and others invite him on anyway. If these networks had any journalistic credibility, they would disclose at the outset he was fired explicitly for his unrepentant anti-Trump bias," Elliott added. "Their refusal to make this disclosure proves that his role as a guest is not to offer legitimate insight into the workings of the FBI, but instead to trash Trump — his actual field of expertise."
He’s been prominently featured on a variety of programs including CNN’s "Don Lemon Tonight," "CNN Newsroom with Jim Acosta," New Day," and MSNBC’s "Morning Joe," "The Beat with Ari Melber," "Deadline: White House," and "The ReidOut."
Jonathan Turley has been critical of Strzok and recently penned a column noting "Strzok appears liberated in showing precisely the bias and unhinged hostility alleged by his critics" because he is so willing to so eager to lash out at Trump and troll objections to the raid. Turley also scolded Strzok for a recent tweet claiming Trump has a Russian passport.
"Peter Strzok's use as an expert on the unbiased investigations of the FBI is akin to using Joseph Hazelwood on the safe navigation of oil tankers," Turley told Fox News Digital, referencing the captain of Exxon Valdez during her 1989 oil spill.
"Unless he is distinguishing the current approach from his own in how to conduct an unbiased and professional investigation, he is hardly speaking from experience," Turley said.
FBI agents descended on Trump's Florida home, seizing classified records, including some marked as top secret, according to a warrant and property receipt. He is being investigated by the Department of Justice over whether he violated three federal laws, including the Espionage Act.
Over the past two weeks, Trump as well as several prominent Republicans have criticized the FBI for what they perceive to be a coordinated attack by the Biden administration against a political opponent. Strzok, an ex-counterintelligence agent who was shown the door after he sent text messages attacking Trump while he was also leading an investigation into Russian election interference, has defended the integrity of the FBI.
"Absolutely the American public should trust what the FBI is doing," Strzok said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" this month. "It’s not that the FBI is targeting any one side or the other. What you see is the FBI going out on a day-in, day-out basis objectively investigating allegations of law."
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On Monday, Strzok appeared on "CNN Newsroom" to defend the FBI once again, claiming it’s "nonsense" to claim the FBI is one-sided.
"I don’t want to hear that this is some sort of one-sided Department of Justice or FBI who only investigates Republicans. That’s nonsense," he said.
Cornell Law School professor William A Jacobson believes CNN and MSNBC must inform viewers about Strzok’s troubled past if he’s going to appear on air, but the networks rarely mention his skeletons.
"CNN and MSNBC do not help their credibility by having on as a supposedly objective commentator a person whose own tainted history regarding Trump dominated the headlines for years. Peter Strzok is entitled to his opinions and those opinions may be worth airing, but if CNN and MSBNC have him on the audience should be alerted to his history, so viewers are not misled," Jacobson told Fox News Digital.
NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck believes Strzok’s MSNBC appearances should have been expected, but the fact that CNN is offering him a platform is a sign the network isn’t ready to take on the nonpartisan approach desired by new CEO Chris Licht.
"While it's no surprise he's been given a hero's welcome on MSNBC over the years, his CNN hits shows the network remains deeply unserious when it comes to a move back toward the center and engaging in serious journalism," Houck told Fox News Digital.
Licht has put an emphasis on "news," and wants to shed the hard-left reputation the network has earned in recent years.
"The belief among hosts and producers that Strzok is a must-have is a great reminder for Chris Licht and his bosses at Discovery that they have a long way to go in cleaning house. Strzok has an ax to grind and room to gallivant about in delight over what his friends in the FBI have done, but that doesn't mean it isn't embarrassing," Houck said.
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Conservative radio host Jason Rantz echoed Houck’s thoughts about the future of CNN, which he feels will continue to be seen as a far-left opinion station until it stops booking people like Strzok.
"That CNN is using the disgraced FBI agent who texted a friend that ‘we’ll stop’ Trump from becoming president to comment on the Trump raid story is just about all you need to explain the networks dismal ratings," Rantz told Fox News Digital.
CNN has announced it would "re-imagine" it’s long-struggling "New Day" in the near future, and the morning show is one of the programs that has relied on Strzok since the FBI raid occurred.
"Of course he’s prominently featured on the morning show no one watches — which is why it’ll be blown up next at CNN," Rantz said. "If CNN management is serious about being seen as a serious and objective network, they're really digging themselves into a deep hole. There are plenty of legitimately nonpartisan and objective law enforcement pundits to choose from, yet CNN always defaults to the anti-Trumpers. No one is served when they do this."
Strzok sent a string of salacious text messages to Page in 2016, at one point telling her "we won't allow" Trump to get elected.
Fox News’ Lindsay Kornick, David Rutz and Cortney O’Brien contributed to this report.
