Lisa Page, the former FBI lawyer whose anti-Trump texts with another agency official has fueled Republicans’ conviction that the Russia probe was politically motivated, does not plan to comply with a GOP subpoena to testify before the House Judiciary Committee.
Page’s attorney, Amy Jeffress, said that the committee did not provide Page with enough information on its intended line of questioning and the FBI has declined to share crucial records for Page to review, according to Politico.
“As a result, Lisa is not going to appear for an interview at this time,” Jeffress said in a statement shared with Politico.
Page was set to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, a day before the committee’s public hearing with Peter Strzok, the agency official she exchanged scathing texts with about then-candidate Donald Trump. Trump has become increasingly obsessed with Strzok and Page in recent weeks and even tweeted about the pair, who were reportedly having an affair when the texts were exchanged, while flying to Belgium for the NATO conference on Tuesday.
House Republicans seized on the news that Page intended to defy the subpoena, with House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) claiming in a statement that Page “has something to hide” and saying she had “no excuse” to not appear before the committee.
Both Strozk and Page have already testified before congressional committees, according to Politico.
While Strzok did eventually work as an investigator in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe — and was removed from the investigation once Mueller found the messages — he was working on the Hillary Clinton email probe at the time he sent the texts to Page.
Strzok even had a significant role in reopening the Clinton investigation just weeks before the 2016 election– he co-wrote the first draft of former FBI director James Comey’s letter to Congress announcing he was reopening the investigation.
