Former FBI agent Peter Strzok will receive $1.2 million as part of his settlement for a lawsuit he brought for violating his privacy by releasing personal text messages and then firing him for their anti-Trump content, ABC News reports.
Once a member of the Mueller Special Counsel team investigating Donald Trump’s interactions with Russian agents during the 2016 presidential election, Strzok was demoted and then fired after texts with a DOJ lawyer with whom he was having an affair leaked to the media. The anti-Trump messages were from a period before the 2016 election when Strzok was part of an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server.
A frequent target of Donald Trump’s rally rages and mean tweets, Strzok argued that he was fired from the FBI for his political speech, which is protected by the First Amendment. “The FBI fired Special Agent Strzok because of his protected political speech in violation of his rights under the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States,” the lawsuit argued.