Adding yet another chapter to the deep state corruption narrative, more news has come out regarding the FBI’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation courtesy of text messages from those two FBI love-birds, agent Peter Strzok and lawyer Lisa Page. Since the discovery of the text messages between these two, both of whom worked on the Clinton investigation and were later a part of Robert Mueller’s investigation into supposed collusion between Donald Trump and Russia, clear implications of deep state politicization and corruption have come to light.

This is what is known thus far.

Strzok and Page were both clearly politically biased. They were pro-Hillary and anti-Trump. That’s not a crime, but questions have been raised as to whether they acted within the FBI in support of Clinton and against Trump. Investigators who have been combing over 50,000 text messages sent between the two have unearthed some interesting and rather troubling revelations, including references to a “secret society” presumably within the FBI that plotted against Trump. Rep. John Radcliffe (R-TX) states, “We learned today about information that in the immediate aftermath of [Trump’s] election, there may have been a ‘secret society’ of folks within the Department of Justice and the FBI, to include Page and Strzok, working against him. I’m not saying that actually happened, but when folks speak in those terms, they need to come forward to explain the context.”

Strzok and Page’s texts also indicate that the decision to exonerate Clinton was determined well before the investigation was concluded and that Barack Obama’s Attorney General Loretta Lynch was privy to the outcome. Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) said, “It’s really clear to me that the decision was made in May of 2016 — two months before [James Comey’s] press conference. Of course Loretta Lynch knew [Hillary Clinton] wasn’t going to be charged. Everyone except the public knew that she was not going to be charged.” This would seem to corroborate the speculation that the infamous Bill Clinton/Lynch tarmac meeting in June 2016 was meant to alert Hillary that the fix was in, and that she need not worry about the outcome of the FBI’s investigation.

Then there is the conspicuously convenient missing text messages from Strzok and Page over the first five months of President Trump’s first year. Responding to this revelation, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Monday that a review is “already underway to ascertain what occurred and to determine if these records can be recovered in any other way. If any wrongdoing were to be found to have caused this gap, appropriate legal disciplinary action measure will be taken.” He added, “We will leave no stone unturned to confirm with certainty why these text messages are not available to be produced and will use every technology available to determine whether the missing messages are recoverable from another source. If we are successful, we will update the congressional committees immediately.”

This news, along with the FISA abuse memo, has several congressional Republicans calling for the appointment of a second special council tasked with investigating the FBI and Justice Department and its handling of both the Clinton investigation and the Russia meddling probe.

A closing observation: While it may be inevitable that individuals working within the government will express partisan bias, what makes it a larger issue with higher stakes is the fact that the federal government has become so powerful — too powerful. A return to federalism and a decentralized government would go a long way toward mitigating what has become a win-at-all-costs mindset among Washington elites.

Update: Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) said Tuesday, “What this is all about is further evidence of corruption, more than bias, but corruption at the highest levels of the FBI. And that ‘secret society?’ We have an informant that’s talking about a group — they were holding secret meetings off-site.” Yes, that’s confirmation that the “secret society” actually existed. Johnson indicated more digging is necessary to evaluate that, but it’s huge news. “And by the way,” Johnson added, “Robert Mueller used to run the FBI.”

As for the “missing” texts, Investor’s Business Daily notes, “The FBI can’t find any of the texts the two sent each other from December 14, 2016, to May 17, 2017, which was the day Mueller was named Special Counsel. The FBI says it was due to a technical glitch. We shall see.” Moreover, deep state agents have a habit of “losing” inconvenient material like that. Whether it was IRS targeting ringleader Lois Lerner losing her email correspondence during a critical period or Hillary Clinton deleting tens of thousands of emails, it’s better to scrub the evidence than face the consequences.

Update 2: Now Johnson isn’t quite as clear, saying Wednesday, “The term ‘secret society’ comes from Strzok and Page. All I said, when I read that it didn’t surprise me cause, you know we are the committee that whistleblowers come to to talk about all kinds of problems throughout the federal government. And so I had heard of a group of people within the FBI holding secret offsite meetings. So I was just kind of connecting the dots.”

That’s a bit different from indicating that the “secret society” mentioned by Strzok and Page was literally having secret off-site meetings. Stay tuned…

Update 3: Indeed, Johnson has a bit of egg on his face on this one. Rather than making the broader point of biased investigators essentially doing the will of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, Johnson made it sound as it if was a literal secret conspiracy … based on a text that, it turns out, was a sarcastic joke. He was connecting dots in a way that went a bit too literal, and thus undermined his broader point.