The Justice Department asked a federal appeals court Tuesday to block a judge’s decision allowing former President Donald Trump to sit for a deposition related to a pair of lawsuits filed by former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.
In a filing with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, government attorneys argued that U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson was wrong to allow plans for the deposition to go forward after a series of top federal officials delivered testimony that “revealed no substantial evidence” to suggest Strzok was wrongfully terminated under pressure from Trump.
Strzok’s attorneys have pushed for Trump’s deposition as part of a 2019 lawsuit against the FBI and the Justice Department to determine whether Trump met with and pressured FBI and Justice Department officials to terminate him or urged any White House aides to do so.
The Justice Department also said in a separate court filing Tuesday that it would no longer intervene on behalf of Trump in a defamation lawsuit filed by writer E. Jean Carroll. Trump sat for a deposition last year in a separate suit filed by Carroll.
Jackson last week denied the Justice Department’s request that she reconsider her earlier ruling that Strzok’s attorneys could move forward with Trump’s deposition. The Justice Department had argued in support of the “apex doctrine,” which says officials are generally not subject to depositions unless they have some personal knowledge of the matter and the information can’t be obtained elsewhere.
In Tuesday’s 43-page filing, government attorneys further pressed that point, saying that depositions in civil litigation involving current and former senior government officials about their professional duties are permitted only in “extraordinary circumstances” and that Strzok’s lawsuit “falls far short of that standard.”
The Justice Department also highlighted others who have already given depositions in the case, including former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz.
Jackson had previously granted the Justice Department’s request to depose FBI Director Christopher Wray before Trump in the case.
In a statement Tuesday, Strzok’s lawyer Aitan Goelman said Jackson’s ruling was “consistent with both binding precedent and the interests of justice.”
“The lengths to which the government has gone to prevent this deposition is striking and suggests that their true concern is what Mr. Trump will say, rather than the interests that underlie the Apex Doctrine,” Goelman said.
“It is particularly telling that the government insisted that Plaintiffs first depose the current FBI Director, despite all the demands on his time, before the former President, who has repeatedly bragged about ‘getting rid’ of Agent Strzok, a man who devoted his career to protecting this country.”
A Trump spokesperson and lawyers for Page didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday night.
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.
Trump often disparaged Strzok and Page while he was in office. Strzok claims he was wrongfully terminated, while Page alleges privacy violations. Page, who resigned as an FBI lawyer in May 2018, argues in her lawsuit that the text messages she exchanged with Strzok were released unlawfully and that attacks by Trump and his associates have damaged her reputation.
Their cases have been consolidated for the purposes of discovery.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
