Donald Trump's legal problems continue to mount on multiple fronts this weekend, first, his former Cheif of Staff John Kelly has testified under oath that Trump openly discussed having the IRS go after former FBI agents and Trump-Russia investigators Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.
John F. Kelly, who served as former President Donald J. Trump’s second White House chief of staff, said in a sworn statement that Mr. Trump had discussed having the Internal Revenue Service and other federal agencies investigate two F.B.I. officials involved in the investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia.
Mr. Kelly said that his recollection of Mr. Trump’s comments to him was based on notes that he had taken at the time in 2018. Mr. Kelly provided copies of his notes to lawyers for one of the F.B.I. officials, who made the sworn statement public in a court filing.
“President Trump questioned whether investigations by the Internal Revenue Service or other federal agencies should be undertaken into Mr. Strzok and/or Ms. Page,” Mr. Kelly said in the statement. “I do not know of President Trump ordering such an investigation. It appeared, however, that he wanted to see Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page investigated.”
Mr. Kelly’s assertions were disclosed on Thursday in a statement that was filed in connection with lawsuits brought by Peter Strzok, who was the lead agent in the F.B.I.’s Russia investigation, and Lisa Page, a former lawyer in the bureau, against the Justice Department for violating their privacy rights when the Trump administration made public text messages between them.
The disclosures from Mr. Kelly, made under penalty of perjury, demonstrate the extent of Mr. Trump’s interest in harnessing the law enforcement and investigative powers of the federal government to target his perceived enemies. In the aftermath of Richard M. Nixon’s presidency, Congress made it illegal for a president to “directly or indirectly” order an I.R.S. investigation or audit.
The New York Times reported last July that two of Mr. Trump’s greatest perceived enemies — James B. Comey, whom he fired as F.B.I. director, and Mr. Comey’s deputy, Andrew G. McCabe — were the subject of the same type of highly unusual and invasive I.R.S. audit.
It is not known whether the I.R.S. investigated Mr. Strzok or Ms. Page. But Mr. Strzok became a subject in the investigation conducted by the special counsel John Durham into how the F.B.I. investigated Mr. Trump’s campaign. Neither Mr. Strzok nor Ms. Page was charged in connection with that investigation, which former law enforcement officials and Democrats have criticized as an effort to carry out Mr. Trump’s vendetta against the bureau. Mr. Strzok is also suing the department for wrongful termination.
And speaking of Strzok's wrongful termination suit, Trump will be deposed in that legal arena as well.
A federal judge on Thursday rejected an effort by the Justice Department to prevent former President Donald Trump from sitting for a deposition related to a pair lawsuits filed by former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.
The order, issued by U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson of Washington, D.C., is a victory for Strzok's attorneys, who are seeking Trump’s deposition to determine whether he met with and directly pressured FBI and Justice Department officials to fire Strzok or urged any White House aides to do so.
The order was in response to the Justice Department's request that she reconsider an earlier ruling that said Strzok's attorneys could move forward with a deposition of Trump in lawsuits against the Justice Department and the FBI that Strzok and Page filed in 2019.
The Justice Department had argued Wednesday that "newly available evidence" stemming from FBI Director Christopher Wray's testimony last week, as well as sworn testimony from other high-level government officials with "direct knowledge" of Trump's communications regarding Strzok and Page, was grounds for reconsidering a deposition involving Trump.
"The availability of that evidence to Mr. Strzok means the deposition of former President Trump is not appropriate,” the government attorneys wrote, expanding on their earlier argument in support of what's known as the apex doctrine, which states that officials are generally not subject to depositions unless they have some personal knowledge of the matter and the information can't be obtained elsewhere.
Justice Department attorneys had argued that Wray's testimony could make it unnecessary to have a deposition with Trump. Much of the "newly available evidence" cited by the Justice Department was redacted from the court filing.
Should be fun times for everyone.
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