Emails show FBI investigated Trump tweets criticizing Obama and FBI, watchdog says

The conservative watchdog Judicial Watch says it has received more than 300 pages of emails between former FBI official Peter Strzok and former FBI attorney Lisa Page that includes records of the FBI discussing an investigation into tweets sent by President Trump in early 2017 about the agency spying on him at the behest of former President Obama.

In a March 2017 exchange, Strzok emails several of his colleagues, including Page, about several tweets the President Trump had sent earlier in the month commenting on suspected wire tapping at Trump Tower during the 2016 election.

"Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!" wrote POTUS on March 4.

"Is it legal for a sitting President to be "wire tapping" a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!" Trump continued. "I'd bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!"

He concluded the March 4 tweet storm with: "How low has President Obama gone to tap my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate Bad (or sick) guy!"

On March 29, 2017, then-FBI Director James Comey's chief of staff emailed Strzok, Page and several of their colleagues saying that the director would like a briefing on a "sensitive matter."

A followup email says that Comey requested the briefing so that he would be able to brief then-acting U.S. Attorney General Dana Boente.

One week after the email exchange and director's briefing, the second renewal and order of the FISA warrant on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page was filed. 

The new emails also detail exchanges between FBI officials and reporters at CNN and the New York Times pertaining to the Russia investigation.

One exchange features Strzok emailing Page, with whom he had an affair, saying, "It makes me angry" that Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) had published a letter demanding answers from the FBI about Deputy Director Andrew McCabe overseeing the Russia investigation, when his wife accepted $700,000 from associates of Hillary Clinton during her run for the Virginia state senate. 

A third exchange features FBI colleagues passing around an article from Gizmodo revealing Comey's private Twitter handle.

"My respect for the D [Director] only solidifies when I see that he named himself after America's preeminent 20th century political theologian." Gizmodo reported that Comey used the Twitter handle Reinhold Niebuhr, a prominent American theologian who embraced a non-absolutist Marxist philosophy.

"These astonishing emails, which have been hidden for years, show the Comey FBI was investigating President Trump over his critical tweets of the agency and Obama's spying abuse and misconduct," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. "These emails also show that Comey was intimately involved with illegal and dishonest FISA spy op against President Trump."