The attorney for controversial FBI agent Peter Strzok said that his client is not sure if he’ll comply with a House Judiciary Committee subpoena to testify next week, telling CNN on Tuesday evening that lawmakers “don’t want the truth.”
The committee issued the subpoena to Strzok earlier Tuesday, setting a July 10 date for his open hearing.
Strzok’s attorney, Aitan Goelman, told CNN he didn’t “know whether or not” they would attend, criticizing the conduct of GOP lawmakers in the 11-hour closed-door interview Strzok sat for last week.
“We have come to the conclusion, forced to come to the conclusion, that this is not a search for truth, it is a chance for Republican members of the House to preen and posture before their most radical, conspiracy-minded constituents,” Goelman said.
Strzok is a former top counterintelligence official at the FBI who worked on both the Hillary Clinton email and Russian interference investigations. He was removed from the Russia probe and demoted after the bureau discovered dozens of anti-Trump text messages he’d exchanged with former FBI lawyer Lisa Page.
Those messages have made Strzok a target in conservative media and among some Republicans on Capitol Hill, who cite them as proof that the entire Russia probe is a partisan operation targeting President Trump.
Goelman told CNN that Strzok does want to tell his story publicly, but is just not sure he wants to do so “in front of these particular House subcommittees.”
The committee could pursue contempt remedies against Strzok if he ultimately refuses to comply with the subpoena.
