The Justice Department said this week that it will seek to prevent former President Donald Trump from giving a deposition ahead of FBI Director Christopher Wray in a lawsuit brought by two former FBI employees.
The department wrote in a court filing on Thursday that it will ask for a writ of mandamus unless U.S. District Judge Amy Berman reconsiders the department's request for Wray to be deposed before seeking to depose Trump.
"As the Court itself acknowledged, Director Wray's testimony could obviate the need for any deposition of former President Trump," the filing reads.
The lawsuit was brought by former FBI agent Peter Strzok, who was fired from the bureau in 2018, and former FBI attorney Lisa Page, who resigned the same year after they were revealed to have made critical comments about Trump in text messages following the 2016 election.
In one instance, Strzok said in an August, 2016, text message to Page that "we'll stop" Trump from becoming president.
Strzok claims in his suit that his firing was "part of a broader campaign against the very principle of free speech" by Trump, saying that partisan political speech was acceptable within the Trump administration as long as it was positive towards Trump and negative towards his opponents.