Trump can give evidence in lawsuit from ex-FBI agent, judge says

A District of Columbia federal judge on Thursday said former president Donald Trump can be made to give evidence in a deposition as part of a lawsuit against the Department of Justice by ex-FBI agent Peter Strzok.

Mr Strzok, who served as the deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division and supervised parts of the probe into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, filed a lawsuit against the department in August 2019, a year after he was fired from his position following what he described as “unrelenting pressure from President Trump and his political allies in Congress and the media” including “constant tweets and other disparaging statements by the President, as well as direct appeals from the President to then- Attorney General Jefferson Sessions and FBI Director Christopher Wray” to have him terminated.

While the government has said Mr Trump’s public statements had no bearing on the decision, Mr Strzok had sought to depose the ex-president as part of the discovery process.

Although the Justice Department had sought to block Mr Trump from giving evidence on the grounds that other witnesses have already testified about the decision to fire the ex-FBI agent, Judge Amy Berman Jackson rejected the government’s arguments in a short order posted to the court’s public docket on Thursday.

“While to the extent the individuals deposed to date recalled the events in question, their testimony did not advance plaintiffs’ theory that the former President was involved in the decision making at issue in this case, the fact remains that the former President himself has publicly boasted of his involvement,” she wrote.

Judge Jackson also noted that Mr Trump’s penchant for filing other civil lawsuits casts doubt on any claim that he is unavailable to testify.

“Given the limited nature of the deposition that has been ordered, and the fact that the former President’s schedule appears to be able to accommodate other civil litigation that he has initiated,” she said.

The government has previously settled a separate wrongful termination lawsuit from Andrew McCabe, the former FBI deputy director who Mr Trump ordered to be terminated just hours before his retirement so as to deny him his government pension.

The government agreed to correct its records so Mr McCabe would be considered to have retired from the FBI with all the benefits and privileges afforded to bureau retirees.