FBI’s Peter Strzok may ignore House subpoena, says his lawyer

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Peter Strzok, the former FBI agent who vowed to “stop” President Trump from winning the 2016 election despite being part of a federal investigation into his campaign, may not show up to testify next week despite being subpoenaed.

“My client will testify soon, somewhere, sometime. We just got this subpoena today, so I don’t know whether or not we are going to be testifying next Tuesday in front of these two particular House subcommittees,” Aitan Goelman, Strzok’s attorney, told CNN’s Chris Cuomo.

Goelman said he could not automatically respond “yes” because the two “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.”

The House Judiciary and Oversight committees sent Strzok the request earlier Tuesday. Goelman initially said his client preferred a public hearing after portions of his first testimony, an 11-hour event held behind closed doors, were leaked by the Republican-controlled committee.

[Also read: Trump: Peter Strzok hearing should be put on ‘live television’]

“From our experience with the committee thus far, it is obvious that they don’t want the truth. They don’t want to hear what Pete has to say,” the lawyer added.

The second hearing was called so lawmakers could hear more about Strzok’s experience working on the federal probe into Hillary Clinton’s private email server and relationship Trump’s campaign had with Russia during the 2016 campaign.

A June report by the Department of Justice inspector general concluded that Strzok’s text messages to his work colleague and mistress, Lisa Page, about preventing Trump winning the election did not affect the agency’s ability to investigate Trump properly.

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