An estimated 50,000 text messages that are believed to be "Anti-Trump" conversations between two Federal Bureau of Investigation (F.B.I.) agents have been wiped clean due to an alleged software glitch by Samsung, which left United States President Donald Trump fuming.
Trump recently called out the tech company for losing text messages between F.B.I. agents and former members of Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller's investigative team Peter Strzok and Lisa Paige. In one exchange from 2015, Strzok made a harsh comment on Trump, who was still a candidate for presidency during the time, calling him an "idiot."
Strzok was reassigned last summer because of the remark and the fear of probable bias, as the criticism occurred during the investigation of Russia's alleged interference in the 2016 United States elections. The agent was considered as one of the top investigators of the case during that time, due to his experience and reputation as one of the most trusted F.B.I. counterintelligence agents in the country.
Page was also removed from the investigation and transferred back to the usual F.B.I. assignments.
According to the U.S. President, five months' worth of text-messages between the two and implied via twitter that the phone company might have had something to do with the deletion as he also questioned the timing of the loss of data.
"In one of the biggest stories in a long time, the FBI now says it is missing five months worth of lovers Strzok-Page texts, perhaps 50,000, and all in prime time. Wow!" Trump said in his tweet on Tuesday. "Where are the 50,000 important text messages between FBI lovers Lisa Page and Peter Strzok? Blaming Samsung!"
The F.B.I. cited technical issues when they reported the data wipe, saying that Samsung 5 mobile phones were not properly configured to store text messages based on the F.B.I.'s software capabilities.
A representative from the company, however, denied that the company is at fault, saying that their brand is not responsible for the issue and that they are willing to cooperate to any investigation that may take place.
