House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) is initiating procedures to subpoena an FBI agent who fiercely criticized President Trump in text messages during the 2016 presidential race.
Politico reported on Friday that Goodlatte had notified his Democratic counterparts on the committee that he will subpoena Peter Strzok. The notifications begin a required two-day waiting period before he can formally issue the subpoena.
{mosads}Strzok exchanged text messages with another FBI official, Lisa Page, during the 2016 race that denigrated Trump and expressed support for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
A report released on Thursday by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz about the FBI’s handling of the investigation into Clinton cited a previously undisclosed text message from Strzok to Page saying that they would “stop” Trump from becoming president.
But that report also said that political bias at the FBI did not directly influence the conclusion of the Clinton investigation or the Justice Department’s decision not to prosecute the former secretary of State.
The report said that Strzok never used his position to work against Trump’s election, but noted that it showed the FBI agent’s willingness to do so.
Trump himself questioned the conclusions of the inspector general’s report on Friday, saying the report was “wrong” to conclude that political bias did not affect the FBI’s actions during the 2016 presidential race.
Strzok also worked on the special counsel investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, but was removed from that probe after special counsel Robert Mueller found out about his text messages with Page.