(CNN) - Congressional lawmakers have received a series of text messages exchanged between top FBI employees that were critical of President Donald Trump.
The messages were exchanged before and just after last year's election between Russian counterintelligence expert Peter Strzok and lawyer Lisa Page. In the texts, the two refer to then-candidate Trump as an "idiot" and a "loathsome human.”
The release of the texts comes after reports surfaced that special counsel Robert Mueller removed Strzok from his team. The Justice Department says Mueller believed Strzok could not participate in the investigation due to the texts.
Strzok was involved in opening the probe into Russian meddling in last year's presidential election, but was re-assigned earlier this year to the FBI’s human resources department.
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