President Trump on Monday night called for the congressional testimony of FBI agent Peter Strzok to be “shown to the public on live television.”
“The hearing of Peter Strzok and the other hating frauds at the FBI & DOJ should be shown to the public on live television, not a closed door hearing that nobody will see,” Mr. Trump tweeted. “We should expose these people for what they are - there should be total transparency!”
Mr. Strzok, the FBI agent whose Tweets disparaging Mr. Trump raised questions of bias in the bureau, is scheduled to testify on Wednesday before the House Judiciary and House Oversight and Government Reform committees as part of their joint investigation into the Justice Department’s decisions regarding the 2016 election.
However, this testimony will be closed to the press and public, a House Judiciary spokesperson confirmed to The Washington Times.
A public hearing may be set for a later date.
A key part of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state, Mr. Strzok later joined the team headed by special counsel Robert Mueller probing Russia collusion with the Trump campaign.
However, he was removed from Mueller team after the Justice Department inspector general discovered text messages disparaging Mr. Trump and promising to stop his election. The text messages were sent to Lisa Page, an FBI attorney romantically involved with Mr. Strzok.
In one message just before the election, Ms. Page asked Mr. Strzok, “Trump’s not ever going to be president, right? Right?!”
“No. No he won’t we’ll stop it,” Mr. Strzok replied.
A report issued by the Justice Department inspector general recommended the FBI take administrative action against Mr. Strzok, Ms. Page and three other unnamed bureau employees.
“The damage caused by [Strzok and Page’s] actions extends far beyond the scope of the [Clinton email] investigation and goes to the heart of the FBI’s reputation for neutral fact-finding and political independence,” Inspector General Michael Horowitz said in the report.
But Mr. Hororwitz did not say if Mr. Strzok’s bias influenced the Russian investigation.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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