Former President Donald Trump’s deposition in connection with the lawsuits filed by former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page has been blocked by a federal judge. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson blocked the May 24 deposition in response to a motion by the Justice Department. The motion urged her to reconsider an earlier ruling that allowed Trump and FBI Director Christopher Wray to be deposed in the lawsuits without specifying the order of depositions.
The judge referred to her February ruling that Trump and Wray could be deposed for no more than two hours and limited to a “narrow set of topics” in the lawsuits Strzok and Page filed against the Justice Department and the FBI in 2019. The judge defended her earlier ruling and said that the lower-ranking government official should be deposed first in case their responses make it unnecessary to interview the higher-ranking official.
Strzok and Page were removed from then-special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation after text messages that were critical of Trump became public in December 2017. Strzok’s lawyers are seeking Trump’s deposition to determine whether he met with and directly pressured FBI and Justice Department officials to terminate Strzok or told any White House staff members to do so. Page’s lawsuit alleges privacy violations, while Strzok argues that he was wrongfully terminated.
Attorneys for Strzok, Page, and Trump did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday night.
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