A U.S. judge on Feb. 23 sided with former FBI officials who have been seeking to depose the FBI’s director and former President Donald Trump.
U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson said that former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were authorized to depose FBI Director Christopher Wray and Trump separately for up to two hours.
The FBI declined to comment. Trump did not respond to a request for comment.
Strzok was a top FBI official who led the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. He also helped lead the probe into alleged links between Trump’s campaign and Russia.
Strzok claimed in a lawsuit that the firing was the result of “unrelenting pressure from President Trump and his political allies in Congress and the media.”
In court filings, Strzok’s lawyers said that deposing Wray and Trump could shed light on the particulars of what transpired.
Department of Justice lawyers had argued that Strzok “failed to establish the relevance of the testimony at this stage” because the plaintiff “has been unable to establish that Director Wray participated in any way in the decision to remove Mr. Strzok, or that any conversations Director Wray may have had with the former President about removing Mr. Strzok were conveyed to those who did make the decision.”
Page has also sued the government over her termination and her efforts to obtain depositions have been merged with those of Strzok.
Jackson’s reasons for siding with the plaintiffs weren’t clear.
Jackson, an Obama appointee, handed down the order after a closed-door hearing held on arguments from the parties.
The new order came “for the reasons stated on the record at the hearing,” Jackson wrote in a brief explanation.
The depositions will be “limited to the narrow set of topics specified on the record at the hearing,” she added.
The ruling did not resolve questions regarding executive privilege, or privilege that can be asserted by presidents.
The U.S. government was told to inform Jackson by March 24 whether President Joe Biden will invoke the privilege for certain topics.
The White House and the Department of Justice did not respond to requests for comment.
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The parties had agreed beforehand that if a deposition of Wray was approved, several topics could be covered, including any investigation he conducted or considered into the disclosure of information related to Strzok or Page, and whether Wray empowered Bowdich to make the final decision on Strzok’s firing. Plaintiffs want to ask Wray about meetings or discussions he had with Bowdich on Strzok and/or Page, but defendants said they were still evaluating what, if anything, Wray could disclose on that aspect.Plaintiffs want to ask Trump about topics including a Jan. 22, 2018, meeting between him, Wray, and then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and a June 15, 2018, meeting whose participants were redacted.
They also want to question the former president about statements he’s made calling for the firings of Strzok and Page before they were terminated, and statements he’s made after indicating he was involved.
Trump said in one recent interview that, “if I didn’t fire Comey, and if I didn’t fire McCabe and Strzok” and “I got rid of them all.”
Former White House chief of staff John Kelly has also said that Trump discussed using the Department of Justice and the IRS to probe Strzok and Page.
The government has said the actions committed by Strzok and Page, not the president’s statements, led to the terminations.
Five people, including Rod Rosenstein, the acting attorney general at one point during the Trump administration, have already been deposed in the case. The government has also produced more than 85,500 pages of documents, according to one filing.
Witnesses have supported the government’s position regarding the firings, the Department of Justice has said.
Candice Will, an FBI Office of Professional Responsibility official, testified that she didn’t recall ever speaking with Wray about Strzok, according to sealed transcripts described in filings by the government. Bowdich said in a deposition that he did not discuss Strzok in interactions he had with Trump and “never saw the President get involved in the termination of anyone beyond the politically-appointed Director,” referring to former Director James Comey.
Bowdich also said under oath that he did not recall Wray ever telling him about any meeting with Trump in which the president pressured Wray to fire Strzok and Page.
