Peter Strzok, the FBI counterintelligence agent who said “we’ll stop” then-candidate Donald Trump from becoming president, has been subpoenaed to openly testify before the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees on July 10 — after his lawyer recently said the date would not work.
The House Judiciary Committee said it subpoenaed Strzok on Tuesday to testify publicly next Wednesday morning as part of the panels’ joint investigation into the Justice Department and FBI’s actions during the 2016 presidential election.
The FBI agent appeared before the two panels last week to give a closed-door interview, which lasted nearly 11 hours.
In a statement responding to the subpoena, Strzok’s attorney Aitan Goelman said if the two committees “were actually interested in making sure the American people knew the truth, they would release the transcript of Pete’s previous testimony.”
Strzok had originally “requested that the initial hearing be public, and one way or another, he will testify publicly soon.”
According to Goelman, his client “wants” the public to hear his testimony instead of it being leaked.
“The only question is when and before what Committee, and those details are not yet settled,” Goelman said.
[Trump: Peter Strzok hearing should be put on ‘live television’]
In a scathing letter to the House Judiciary Committee last week but obtained by the Washington Examiner on Monday, Goelman condemned Republican lawmakers for leaking parts of the interview and for behavior that “has transcended the bounds of decency, civility and fair dealing, even for this deeply divided political era.”
“Having sharpened their knives behind closed doors, the committee would now like to drag back Special Agent Strzok and have him testify in public — a request that we originally made and the committee denied,” Goelman wrote. “What’s being asked of Special Agent Strzok is to participate in what anyone can recognize as a trap.”
Goelman then said that Strzok would not accept an invitation to testify publicly on July 10. It is not immediately clear if Strzok will comply with the subpoena, and Goelman did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Strzok was a top FBI agent on the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server and simultaneously served on the bureau’s Russia investigation. The 20-year FBI veteran was then detailed to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, as was former FBI attorney Lisa Page, but both were removed after their disparaging text messages about Trump came to light.
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz criticized Strzok for bias in a lengthy report released earlier this month.
In August 2016 — days after the investigation began into Russian interference in the election and any potential connection to Trump’s campaign — Strzok texted Page that “we’ll stop” Trump from making it to the White House.
“[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” Page wrote to Strzok.
“No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it,” Strzok responded.
Though the IG said he found no evidence that Strzok’s decision-making was skewed by his bias, he admitted he “did not have the confidence” that Strzok’s decision to prioritize the Russia investigation over the discovery of new Clinton emails on former New York congressman Anthony Weiner’s laptop was ”free from bias.”
However, Horowitz found that the decisions made were investigative judgment calls, not politically biased ones.
Both Goelman and Democratic lawmakers have called for the transcript of the written interview to be released.
