A former FBI attorney known for her anti-Trump bias and who the president said recently was getting “cold feet” about testifying on Capitol Hill, will not comply with a subpoena from the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees.
Lisa Page, who was having an extramarital affair with FBI agent Peter Strzok, announced via her attorney Tuesday evening that she will not appear before the joint committees Wednesday morning — 24 hours before Strzok is slated to testify publicly before the same two panels.
Strzok sat for closed door interviews — lasting nearly 11 hours — with the committees last month.
[New: Lisa Page’s lawyer says she’s willing to testify ‘later this month’]
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz issued a blistering report last month about misconduct by FBI officials regarding the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server and Russian interference into the 2016 election.
Page and Strzok were named repeatedly in the report, and Republican lawmakers and Trump have cited the report in claiming they mishandled the probes — although the IG report says their bias did not ultimately impact the findings of either one.
“Instead of responding to our requests to explain the scope of the interview and provide sufficient notice to allow her to prepare, the Committees chose to issue a subpoena on Saturday (July 7) demanding that Lisa appear on Wednesday, July 11.”
The Committees would be asking Lisa about materials that she “has not yet been shown,” said Page’s lawyer, Amy Jeffress, in a Monday night statement.
Jeffress said she and Page were at the FBI earlier Monday “to review the materials that were previously produced to Congress relating to her proposed interview, but after waiting for more than three hours, we were not provided with any documents.”
Jeffress said they asked the committees to schedule another date that would allow “sufficient time” for Page to prepare, but the request was not granted.
“As a result, Lisa is not going to appear for an interview at this time,” said Jeffress.
Jeffress indicated last week that Page had already cooperated voluntarily with “another congressional committee” and had also given a complete testimony to Horowitz.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., slammed Page’s decision not to appear, saying it means she “has something to hide.”
“She plans to blatantly defy a congressional subpoena by refusing to appear for her deposition. She has known for months that the House Judiciary Committee has sought her testimony as part of our joint investigation with the Oversight Committee into decisions made by the Justice Department in 2016, and she has no excuse for her failure to appear,” the Virginia Republican said in a statement.
He added: “We will use all tools at our disposal to obtain her testimony. Americans across the country are alarmed at the bias exhibited by top officials at the Justice Department and FBI, and it is imperative Congress conduct vigorous oversight to ensure that never happens again.”
[Related: Paul Ryan ‘very disturbed’ by Lisa Page’s no-show]
