Peter Strzok

“I had lived through four revolutions on three continents. Whether in Iran, West Africa, or Haiti, all shared common characteristics, and all taught me lessons about dictators and authoritarians and their hunger to consolidate power and obtain, or at least convey legitimacy. That quest for legitimacy played out in a host of ways. One was the desire to manipulate, control, or discredit media. A relentless distortion of reality numbs a country’s populace to outrage and weakens its ability to discern truth from fiction. Another way dictators sought to secure power and legitimacy was by co-opting the power of the state, its military, law enforcement, and judicial systems, to carry out personal goals and vendettas rather than the nation’s needs. Still, another was by undermining dissent, questioning the validity of opposition, and refusing to honor public will, up to and including threatening or preventing the peaceful transfer of power.”
― Peter Strzok, Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump

“These were lessons that I would learn again and again in the years to come, but always in distant lands, always in places that lacked the robust democratic institutions of the United States and the legal scaffolding that supports it, the Constitution. I never thought I’d have occasion to revisit these lessons at home in the United States, and I never expected to see the grotesque traits of dictators in Haiti or Iran reflected in my own Commander-in-Chief.”
― Peter Strzok, Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump