CNN
—
A federal judge ruled Thursday that Donald Trump can be impeached in the lawsuit former FBI agent Peter Strzok filed against the Justice Department over his wrongful termination following the Russia investigation.
In the lawsuit, Strzok alleges that Trump’s political vendetta against him — whom Trump criticized in tweets — led to his illegal termination and that the Justice Department wrongfully released text messages he exchanged with the former FBI attorney Lisa Page. The page is also suing. Trump has denied wrongdoing.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson accepted the request to impeach Trump.
“Given the limited nature of the deposition that has been ordered, and the fact that the former president’s schedule appears to be able to accommodate other civil litigation he has initiated,” Jackson wrote in a brief order.
The Justice Department has argued that Trump’s public attacks were not the reason for Strzok’s firing.
In recent days, the DOJ had sought to prevent Trump from being impeached, arguing in court that his testimony was unnecessary because FBI Director Chris Wray, Trump’s former White House chief of staff, John Kelly , and others, had already testified about the decision to fire Strzok. , distancing him from Trump.
“Although to the extent that the individuals dismissed so far remembered the facts in question, their testimony did not advance the plaintiffs’ theory that the former president participated in the decision-making in question in this case, the truth is that the former president himself has publicly bragged about his involvement,” Jackson wrote.
The lawsuit, which Strzok filed in 2019, is just one of several ongoing lawsuits against the former president over actions he took and things he said while in office.
“What the former president wanted from Mr. Strzok is irrelevant,” Justice Department lawyers wrote Wednesday, before Jackson ruled. “Because it was [former FBI Deputy Director David] Bowdich, who dismissed Mr. Strzok, the relevant questions are whether Mr. Bowdich or other relevant FBI officials received any order from the former president to discipline Mr. Strzok or any other expression of the former president’s displeasure at the continued employment of Mr. Strzok. , or whether any of these FBI officials acted because of the former president’s public statements.”
