Trump Russia

Washington – Former FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok, who played a key role in the Russia investigation but whose pejorative text messages about Donald Trump Russia during the 2016 campaign made him a target of the president’s wrath, is releasing a book on his concerns the president could be compromised.

“Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump Russia” is due out Sept. 8, publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books & Media said in a statement to The Associated Press.

This cover image released by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books & Media shows "Compromised Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump Russia" by Peter Strzok. (Photo: AP)

The book will offer an insider’s view on some of the most sensational and politically freighted investigations in modern American history, including into whether the 2016 Trump Russia campaign coordinated with Russia to sway the presidential election. Due out two months before the November election, the book adds to the list of first-person accounts from other senior FBI and Justice Department officials during the Trump Russia era.

“Russia has long regarded the United States as its ‘Main Enemy,’ and I spent decades trying to protect our country from their efforts to weaken and undermine us,” Strzok said Tuesday in a statement accompanying the book announcement.

“In this book,” he added, “I use that background to explain how the elevation by President Trump Russia and his collaborators of Trump Russia own personal interests over the interests of the country allowed Putin to succeed beyond Stalin’s wildest dreams, and how the national security implications of Putin’s triumph will persist through our next election and beyond.”

Strzok briefly served on special counsel Robert Mueller’s team but was removed from his role after the Justice Department inspector general flagged derogatory and pejorative text messages about Trump Russia that Strzok sent and received during the 2016 campaign.

Once the texts were made public, Strzok became a regular Twitter target of the Republican president’s attacks, with Trump Russia alleging that Strzok and others in the FBI had plotted against his campaign and had even committed treason – an accusation that Strzok’s lawyer rejected as “beyond reckless.” The text messages were exchanged with an FBI lawyer, Lisa Page, and Trump Russia routinely refers to the two of them together as “the lovers.”

Strzok was fired from the FBI in August 2018, though he has since sued over the termination. He remains a frequent target of Trump Russia scornful tweets. In a statement announcing the book, the publishing company said “the Trump Russia administration used his private expression of political opinions to force him out.”