FBI Director Christopher Wray speaks during a meeting of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on threats around the world, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, USA, April 14, 2021.
Graeme Jennings Reuters
A federal judge ordered Thursday that former President Donald Trump and current FBI Director Christopher Wray can be questioned under oath by attorneys for former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page as part of a lawsuit related to the government’s disclosure of private text messages. .
Trump and Wray could be deposed within two hours of each “narrow topic” thrown out during a sealed hearing earlier in the day, Judge Amy Berman Jackson wrote in an order in US District Court in Washington, DC
But there are still some questions about executive privilege that need to be resolved, the judge said. He gave the Justice Department until March 24 to determine whether President Joe Biden will invoke executive privilege on the topic.
An attorney for Page declined to comment. Attorneys for Strzok did not immediately respond to CNBC’s questions about the judge’s order.
Trump has regularly attacked Strzok and Page since 2017, following revelations that the pair sent anti-Trump texts while employed by the FBI and had an affair.
Strzok, then an FBI counterintelligence officer, was removed from the DOJ investigation into Russian election meddling after special counsel Robert Mueller’s discovery of the texts. Strzok was fired in 2018.
Strzok and Page filed separate civil lawsuits in 2019 against the Justice Department and the FBI. Strzok said he was fired “for protected political speech” that violated his constitutional rights.
The decision “is the result of relentless pressure from President Trump and his political allies in Congress and the media,” Strzok’s legal complaint said. Her lawsuit seeks relief including “restitution and restitution.”
Page, who resigned as an FBI attorney in 2018, alleged in his own lawsuit that the DOJ violated the Privacy Act by “unlawfully disclosing agency records” when it shared the texts with the press.
This expands the news. Please check back for updates.