Judge rules Donald Trump, FBI Director Christopher Wray may be ordered to testify in lawsuit against DOJ

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A federal judge ruled Thursday that former President Donald Trump and FBI Director Christopher Wray can be ordered to testify in a lawsuit by two former FBI officials. File Photo by Gary I Rothstein/UPI | License Image

Feb. 23 (UPI) — A federal judge ruled Thursday that former President Donald Trump and FBI Director Christopher Wray can be ordered to testify in a lawsuit by two former FBI officials.

Lisa Page, a former agency lawyer, and Peter Strzok, a former agent, have a lawsuit against the Department of Justice for violating their right to privacy and improperly firing Strzok from the bureau. The department is accused of illegally releasing text messages between Page and Strzok.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the US District Court in Washington, DC, ordered that Trump and Wray could be called to testify for two hours each in the case with questions limited to a narrow range of subject related to the case, NBC News reports. The plaintiffs had to establish why the testimony of the former president and current FBI director was relevant to their lawsuit.

Page first filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department in 2019, alleging the department leaked private text messages to the media, which led to a flurry of public attacks against Page by Trump and his allies. in politics.

The content of the text messages, discussed in the complaint, included discussions about “stopping” Trump from winning the 2016 presidential election. Trump has made numerous public references to Page by name, calling him “corrupt,” “incompetent” and “stupid,” among other things.

Strzok was part of the FBI special counsel investigating Hilary Clinton under former FBI Director Robert Mueller. When text messages between him and Page — with whom he had a romantic relationship at the time — were released, Strzok was dismissed from the investigation and ultimately fired in 2018. He also filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department in 2019.

The Hill reported that Strzok believes his termination from the FBI was politically motivated.

Trump previously attempted to sue Page, Strzok, former election opponent Hillary Clinton and others over the investigation into his alleged ties to Russia throughout the 2016 election. US District Judge Donald Middlebrooks dismissed the suit on September, stating that it was merely an attempt to “present a two-hundred-page political manifesto outlining his grievances against his opponents,” according to ABC News.

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