Strzok April 25-26, 2017 Lync Messages

In today’s post, I’m going to describe some fascinating detective work, mostly by the redoubtable walkafyre (to which I made lesser contribution), which shed light on some intriguing April 25-26, 2017 Strzok Lync messages. Because details from the period between the 2017 Inauguration to the Mueller Appointment have been rather rigorously withheld by FBI, any light is important.

Strzok’s Lync messages were not available until January 20, 2021 (see the Messages.pdf document made available by John Solomon here). Strzok’s Lync messages were the only new material in Solomon’s Messages.pdf. Its first 167 pages regurgitate documents already made available by Grassley. Anyone who gave up on Solomon’s document after wading through 167 pages for something new would have missed them.

The Messages.pdf actually contained three (!) versions of the Strzok Lync messages. One version (Messages.pdf, 168-189) was presented to HGSAC on October 20, 2020, but not published by them. A second (“Lesser Redacted”) version (Messages.pdf, 190-211) was presented to HGSAC on December 3, 2020, but again not published by them. The third “Declassified” version (Messages.pdf, pages 228-229) was “produced by OLA” on December 10, 2020.

The texts shown below are from the most recent (OLA) version. Times below are UTC: EDT is -04:00 hours. Frustratingly, what are undoubtedly the most interesting parts have been redacted.

What we can tell from this is that, on or about April 25, 2017, Richard Quinn (FBI public relations) had asked Strzok about information that Manafort had been “recruited and paid to infiltrate the [Trump] campaign”. A few hours later, Strzok said he needed “background” on something or someone, but unfortunately redacted. An hour later, Quinn said that he would try to get a copy.

The next day, Strzok texted someone that CBS had a “intel report cited similarly to but better than REDACTED”, which was “written by someone in intel or with intel training, had a lot of links to Ukraine”, with the “specific allegation that Manafort was recruited and paid by RIS to infiltrate the Trump campaign”. It looks like Strzok then compared the CBS information to some other document, but the comparison was redacted.

In the previous (December 3, 2020) version, two of the redactions were filled in. We learn that REDACTED had given a “write up on Manafort” to the FBI and that Strzok was wondering whether he (or his subsources) “would take his write up on Manafort that he gave us to the press? Would his subsources?” We also learn that the dossier seen by CBS news had been said to be “better than Steele’s”. Not a surprise. The closing comment comment remained redacted as “Source Identifying”, as was the name of the person on who Strzok sought “background on”.

Although the December 3, 2020 version was labeled as “Lesser Redacted”, it was the earliest (October 20, 2020) version that was least redacted on this point (and most others). We learn that the CBS information, as described, was “a lot like the report he gave us” - except for the “specific allegation that Manafort was recruited and paid by RIS to infiltrate the Trump campaign”.

But who was FBI’s mysterious source? It’s a solvable puzzle (or, at least, solvable by walkafyre) and the answer is interesting. Can you figure it out? Answer will be in follow-up post tomorrow.