The chairs of the House Oversight and Judiciary committees on Tuesday threatened to hold former FBI lawyer Lisa Page in contempt of Congress if she does not testify before the committees this week.
Page, whose 2016 anti-Trump text messages with FBI agent Peter Strzok have become the stuff of conspiratorial Republican hysteria, defied a Judiciary Committee subpoena to testify in a closed-door setting before the committees on Wednesday. Her attorney said Page hadn’t been given enough information about the committees’ intended line of questioning.
“As an additional, and final, accommodation, the [Judiciary] Committee will stay the contempt proceedings provided Lisa Page voluntarily appears on July 12, 2018, at 10:00 a.m., at a previously scheduled public hearing regarding relevant issues under investigation,” Oversight Chair Trey Gowdy (R-SC) and Judiciary Chair Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) wrote.
“While your client would still be deposed at some point, appearance at the hearing scheduled for Thursday July 12, 2018, at 10:00 a.m. would negate the need for immediate contempt proceedings,” they added. “Alternatively, your client, Lisa Page, could present herself for a deposition on Friday, July 13, 2018, at 10:00 a.m. This option would stay contempt proceedings and resolve the Committees’ need to depose your client.”
“The Committees would be asking Lisa about materials that she has not yet been shown,” Page’s attorney Amy Jeffress said on Tuesday, explaining Page’s refusal to show up for Wednesday’s deposition. “In fact, Lisa and I went to the FBI today today to review the materials that were previously produced to Congress related to her proposed interview, but after waiting more than three hours, we were not provided with any documents.”
Read Gowdy and Goodlatte’s letter to Page below:
