The bad news just keeps coming for disgraced former President Donald Trump, as a bombshell report from Politico confirms that a federal judge has agreed to allow infamous former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page to take two hours of sworn testimony from the ex-president in connection to their long-running lawsuit regarding Trump’s notorious 2018 firing of Strzok following repeated public attacks and lashings by then-president Trump against the two then-top FBI officials.
“U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled on Thursday that Strzok and Page — whose text messages disparaging then-candidate Trump cast a pall over the FBI’s investigation of links between the Trump campaign and Russia — would also be allowed to depose FBI Director Christopher Wray for a similar two-hour period on a limited set of topics,” the explosive report from Politico reads.
“But there’s a twist,” Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein write, “Their ability to ask Trump and Wray about these circumstances might come down to a decision from President Joe Biden.” Funnily enough, this particular twist once again leaves Donald Trump depending on his successor for any conceivable chance of utilizing the executive privilege he’s been so desperate to invoke across the multiple lawsuits and investigations currently raging against him.
In her order, Judge Jackson allows the Department of Justice one month to “inform the Court whether the current President will invoke… executive privilege” over any aspect of former President Trump’s sworn testimony.
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Jackson, who was appointed to her position as a federal judge by now-former President Barack Obama, also made note that she has yet to fully consider all of the potential objections that could be lodged against her Trump testimony ruling by former President Trump and FBI Director Wray. Those potential objections could likely include a claim from Trump that he is within his right to invoke unilateral executive privilege in the case, as a former United States president.
Strzok’s lawsuit ultimately pushes back against his termination from the FBI by then-President Trump, as both he and Page claim a blatant invasion of their privacy after Trump spent years publicly assailing their character over the pair’s private text messages regarding the now ex-president, and the manner in which the Trump DOJ publicly released hundreds upon hundreds of their private text messages. Trump has long tried to cite Strzok and Page’s once-private correspondences as proof that the FBI’s probe into his presidential campaign’s connections to Russia was a biased smear campaign lodged against him by two disgruntled FBI employees. Multiple independent reviews of the Russia probe have proven that not to be the case. Yet still, Strzok was fired from his position amid the controversy, while Page ultimately resigned.
In their lawsuits, Strzok and Page assert that Donald J. Trump and his Justice Department engaged in and carried out a political vendetta against the two now-former FBI officials.
Both the DOJ and the FBI have vehemently claimed that Donald Trump’s public smear campaign against Strzok and Page played no role in the bureau’s decision to terminate Strzok’s employment with the FBI, instead contending that the decision was made in full by career officials and devoid of any political pressure. Both federal government entities assert that depositions against Trump and/or Wray would serve little purpose in exposing any decisions made by other FBI officials.
However, Politico notes, “Jackson’s ruling suggests there might be evidence that she thinks only Trump and Wray can provide. She noted that her decision was rooted in an analysis of the ‘apex doctrine,’ which requires litigants to first seek information from figures at lower rungs of an organization before pursuing testimony of more senior officials.”
In a sealed hearing that took place yesterday, Judge Jackson indicated that the depositions of Donald Trump and Christopher Wray would be limited to a “narrow set of topics.”
See the full report from Politico here.
Featured image via Political Tribune Gallery
