Two former FBI officials settle lawsuits with Justice Department over leaked text messages
- Two former FBI officials settled lawsuits with the Justice Department on Friday, resolving claims that their privacy rights were violated when the department leaked to the news media text messages that they had sent one another that disparaged former President Donald Trump. Peter Strzok, a former top counterintelligence agent who played a crucial role in the investigation into Russian election interference in 2016, settled his case for $1.2 million. Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer who exchanged text messages with Strzok, also reached a separate settlement.
Nearly two weeks after Donald Trump’s near assassination, the FBI confirmed Friday that it was indeed a bullet that struck the former president’s ear, moving to clear up conflicting accounts about what caused the former president’s injuries after a gunman opened fire at a Pennsylvania rally. “What struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subject’s rifle,” the agency said in a statement. The statement from the FBI marked the most definitive law enforcement account of Trump’s injuries and followed ambiguous comments earlier in the week from Director Christopher Wray that appeared to cast doubt on whether Trump had actually been hit by a bullet.
Intense wildfires in western Canada have sent plumes of smoke across North America, and fires in Oregon, Idaho and California are also causing air quality to drop.
A pilot has been found dead after the air tanker he was flying was reported missing near the scene of a wildfire in Oregon, authorities said Friday.
