Former FBI official says Russian, Chinese, and Iranian spies could have tried to infiltrate Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence

Authored by businessinsider.com and submitted by SoundsLikeFraud
image for Former FBI official says Russian, Chinese, and Iranian spies could have tried to infiltrate Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence

Former FBI official Peter Strzok says "any competent foreign intelligence service" would have tried to enter Mar-a-Lago.

He cited Russia, China, Iran, and Cuba as possible countries that these agents came from.

Strzok was fired from the FBI after sending anti-Trump messages, and is a frequent target of his attacks.

Sign up for our newsletter to receive our top stories based on your reading preferences — delivered daily to your inbox. Loading Something is loading. Email address By clicking ‘Sign up’, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider as well as other partner offers and accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

A former FBI agent said it is likely that foreign agents from Russia and China tried to infiltrate former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence, considering the top-secret documents that were being kept there.

Peter Strzok, who was once deputy director of the FBI's counterintelligence division made the observation while speaking to MSNBC host Katie Phang on Sunday.

He was fired from the agency for sending anti-Trump text messages on his work phone. In return Trump has frequently attacked him and claimed he is an example of state employees being biased against him.

During the show, Phang asked Strzok if he thought it was likely that Russia had "tried to infiltrate" Mar-a-Lago to obtain classified data. Phang had been referring to the classified documents that Trump had stored at his Florida home, which were seized during the FBI's raid on the property earlier this month.

"Absolutely the Russians, but not just the Russians, any competent foreign intelligence service, whether that's those belonging to China, those belonging to Iran, to Cuba, certainly including Russia, are all — were interested, and are interested in gaining access to Mar-a-Lago," he responded.

Strzok added that he found it "especially concerning" that there had been an "absolute lack of any sort of control or memorialization of who had access to Mar-a-Lago at any given time."

Whether or not classified documents had been kept on the property, it was still likely that foreign intelligence services would have attempted to gain access into Mar-a-Lago both during and after Trump's term as president, said Strzok.

"And that's absolutely the sort of thing that the US intelligence community and the FBI, in particular, are going to concerned about — trying to establish who had access to the grounds, who had access to that storage area, and what they need to do to mitigate any sort of damage that might've occurred," he added.

Strzok is known for having helped launch the investigation into whether there was Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The then-Mueller investigator was fired by the FBI after his extramarital affair with his colleague, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, was publicized when the DOJ disclosed their messages to each other. These texts included anti-Trump messages and allusions to wanting to stop Trump from becoming president.

Trump and Strzok have a bitter history — which includes the former president's recent attempt in July 2022 to try to sue both Page and Strzok. Strzok has also written a book about the former president, "Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump."

Strzok's comments came the same day news broke about the FBI's investigation into a Ukrainian woman who posed as a member of the Rothschild banking family and wandered around Mar-a-Lago with Trump.

US intelligence officers and counterterrorism analysts also said this week that Mar-a-Lago was a "nightmare" location for the storage of sensitive documents and an obvious target for foreign agents.

During the search of Mar-a-Lago, the FBI seized 11 sets of classified documents, including some that were marked "top secret" and may have concerned nuclear weapons.

According to the warrant, the Justice Department is looking into whether Trump broke three federal laws, including the Espionage Act, by taking the documents to Mar-a-Lago.

Louiethefly on August 29th, 2022 at 12:11 UTC »

Infiltrate? Wouldn't they just apply for membership and pay the fee?

GhotinB on August 29th, 2022 at 12:08 UTC »

They did. There are two separate instances of a Chinese spy infiltrating it.

PartyIncident on August 29th, 2022 at 12:08 UTC »

I wasn't aware "infiltrate" was synonymous with "invite." #TheMoreYouKnow