The U.S. Department of Justice is reportedly attempting to stop a deposition with Donald Trump later this month regarding a lawsuit involving two former FBI officials.
“In a redacted court filing Thursday, Justice Department attorneys said Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar authorized an appeal to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for Washington, D.C., unless a lower court judge reconsiders an earlier ruling allowing Trump’s deposition to take place before a deposition with FBI Director Christopher Wray,” NBC News reported.
The Justice Department is seeking to stop a deposition with Donald Trump this month in lawsuits filed by two former FBI officials who have been frequent targets of criticism by the former president. https://t.co/06BSIH1uHe
— NBC News (@NBCNews) May 12, 2023
Peter Strzok and Lisa Page sued the Department of Justice and FBI in 2019.
President Trump and FBI Director Christopher Wray may be deposed.
At this moment, Trump is scheduled to give a deposition on May 24th.
UPDATE: Judge Amy Berman Jackson has now ordered that FBI director Chris Wray’s deposition take place first in the ongoing litigation by now-former Bureau officials Peter Strzok & Lisa Page. But they’ll still get a Trump depo.
— Lisa Rubin (@lawofruby) May 12, 2023
From NBC News:
“Contrary to the request of the United States, Mr. Strzok seeks to depose former President Trump before Director Wray, thereby making it impossible to determine if the Director’s deposition might obviate the need to depose the former President,” Justice Department attorneys wrote in a 10-page motion to block Trump’s deposition.
They asked the court to resolve the matter by Tuesday.
Lawyers for Strzok declined to comment. Attorneys for Page and Trump did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In a court filing in March, the Justice Department said Trump “has not requested an assertion of privilege over any of the information within the scope of the authorized depositions.”
Jackson’s ruling in February said the Trump and Wray depositions must be limited to two hours and to a “narrow set of topics” that were discussed at a sealed hearing.
The Justice Department said this week that it will seek to prevent former President Donald Trump from giving a deposition ahead of FBI Director Christopher Wray in a lawsuit brought by two former FBI employees. https://t.co/aswLqhjZkj
— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) May 12, 2023
“As the Court itself acknowledged, Director Wray’s testimony could obviate the need for any deposition of former President Trump,” the filing stated.
From Newsmax:
The lawsuit was brought by former FBI agent Peter Strzok, who was fired from the bureau in 2018, and former FBI attorney Lisa Page, who resigned the same year after they were revealed to have made critical comments about Trump in text messages following the 2016 election.
In one instance, Strzok said in an August, 2016, text message to Page that “we’ll stop” Trump from becoming president.
Strzok claims in his suit that his firing was “part of a broader campaign against the very principle of free speech” by Trump, saying that partisan political speech was acceptable within the Trump administration as long as it was positive towards Trump and negative towards his opponents.
Read the court filing HERE.
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