WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 12: Deputy Assistant FBI Director Peter Strzok is sworn in before a joint committee hearing of the House Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform committees in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill July 12, 2018 in Washington, DC. While involved in the probe into Hillary ClintonÕs use of a private email server in 2016, Strzok exchanged text messages with FBI attorney Lisa Page that were critical of Trump. After learning about the messages, Mueller removed Strzok from his investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to win the 2016 presidential election. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
A federal judge ruled on Thursday that former president Donald Trump and FBI director Chris Wray can be deposed in an ongoing legal battle involving ex-FBI agent Peter Strzok.
Strzok was fired from the FBI in 2018 following the release of a series of anti-Trump text messages that were sent to FBI lawyer Lisa Page, who resigned amid the controversy.
Strzok has been challenging his termination for years, and both of the ex-FBI officials claim their constitutional rights were violated under the Privacy Act.
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Perhaps most notably, in the summer of 2016, Page texted Strzok that Trump is “not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” Strzok then responded, “No. No he’s not. We’ll stop it.”
Strzok was heavily criticized for implying that he would take official action to alter the results of the 2016 presidential election. Then-candidate Trump still went on to win the presidency.
Strzok and his lawyers contend that Trump, who had relentlessly attacked the former FBI agent on Twitter, had him fired for political reasons. While Stzok has apologized for his messages, he argues that they were meant to be private and that his sentiments did not have any effect on his work.
D.C. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, an Obama administration appointment, has ruled that Stzok can call in Trump and Wray for questioning. The depositions, she decided, must be kept under two hours and will be narrowly focused on the government’s decision to fire Strzok.
Strzok and Page, who were revealed to be having an extramarital relationship, were involved in both the Hillary Clinton email investigation and the Trump-Russia collusion investigation.
Strzok played a leading role in the investigation into Clinton’s improper use of her private email server and was involved in the decision not to press charges against the former secretary of state.
Although Republicans seized on this to suggest Strzok and the FBI were politically influenced, the DOJ inspector general concluded in an investigation that the Clinton-email nor Trump-Russia probes were tainted by political bias.
Neither investigation ultimately led to charges being brought against the 2016 presidential candidates.
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