WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump attacked a former FBI lawyer on Wednesday after she failed to testify on allegations of anti-Trump bias in the FBI’s investigation of him.
Lisa Page — whose affair with FBI agent Peter Strzok has led Trump to dub the pair the “FBI lovers” — was threatened with contempt of Congress charges after she failed to honor a subpoena to appear before the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees Wednesday over her role in politically sensitive probes of Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Page and Strzok are major figures in a Republican effort to discredit the FBI and protect Trump from allegations that his campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign and that he tried to obstruct the investigation into those allegations.
During 2016, Page and Strzok were having an affair while they were both involved in the politically charged investigation of Clinton, Trump’s Democratic election rival, for misuse of classified materials on her private email server.
“Lisa Page today defied a House of Representatives issued Subpoena to testify before Congress! Wow, but is anybody really surprised!” Trump tweeted late Wednesday.
“Together with her lover, FBI Agent Peter Strzok, she worked on the Rigged Witch Hunt, perhaps the most tainted and corrupt case EVER!“
Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte said Page had “no excuse” for not appearing, and threatened to have her charged with contempt if she did not show up to testify by Friday.
In a letter to her lawyer Amy Jeffress, Goodlatte said she had a choice of appearing publicly along with Strzok in a hearing on Thursday, or accepting to be deposed privately on Friday at 10:00 am.
“After months of trying to secure her appearance, the committees scheduled her deposition for July 11, 2018. Despite proper service of your client with a subpoena directing her to appear, she did not,” he said.
“The Judiciary Committee intends to initiate contempt proceedings on Friday, July 13, 2018, at 10:30 am.”
Earlier he said Page appears to have “something to hide” by not appearing.
Jeffress said in a statement prior to the contempt threat that Page could not appear without first having access to FBI documents that the committees already possessed, and that they had ignored her efforts to find a later date for the deposition.
“Through her actions and words, Lisa has made it abundantly clear that she will cooperate with this investigation. All she is asking is to be treated as other witnesses have under the committees’ own rules,” Jeffress said.
The two committees’ “bullying tactics here are unnecessary,” she added.
Text messages between the two that investigators found on Page’s work cell phone included numerous derogatory references to Trump.
After the Clinton probe ended and Trump won the election, both Strzok and Page joined, for a short time, the investigation led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into possible collusion with Russia by the Trump campaign, as well as possible obstruction of justice.
Aiming to discredit the probe, Trump and supporters in Congress have charged that Mueller’s team is stacked with Democrats and that the FBI has been opposed to him.
FBI director Christopher Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein have rejected suggestions of bias against Trump, and have assured Congress that Mueller is conducting his probe appropriately.
In tweets, Trump has branded the couple the “FBI lovers” and said their bias was at the heart of Mueller’s “Witch Hunt.”
Strzok was questioned for 11 hours over his role and alleged bias in a closed hearing of the two committees two weeks ago.
He is scheduled to appear again in a public hearing Thursday morning.
Among those charged in the Mueller probe are 13 Russians and Trump’s former campaign chief Paul Manafort. Michael Flynn, who briefly served as Trump’s national security adviser, pleaded guilty to lying to investigators.
‘FBI lovers’ lawyer refuses to testify on alleged anti-Trump bias
‘FBI lovers’ lawyer refuses to testify on alleged anti-Trump bias
- Lisa Page and Peter Strzok are major figures in a Republican effort to discredit the FBI and protect Trump from allegations that his campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign
- During 2016, Page and Strzok were having an affair while they were both involved in the politically charged investigation of Hillary Clinton for misuse of classified materials on her private email ser
Mystery of CIA’s lost nuclear device haunts Himalayan villagers 60 years on
- Plutonium-fueled spy system was meant to monitor China’s nuclear activity after 1964 atomic tests
- Porter who took part in Nanda Devi mission warned family of ‘danger buried in snow’
NEW DELHI: Porters who helped American intelligence officers carry a nuclear spy system up the precarious slopes of Nanda Devi, India’s second-highest peak, returned home with stories that sent shockwaves through nearby villages, leaving many in fear that still holds six decades later.
A CIA team, working with India’s Intelligence Bureau, planned to install the device in the remote part of the Himalayas to monitor China, but a blizzard forced them to abandon the system before reaching the summit.
When they returned, the device was gone.
The spy system contained a large quantity of highly radioactive plutonium-238 — roughly a third of the amount used in the atomic bomb dropped by the US on the Japanese city of Nagasaki in the closing stages of the Second World War.
“The workers and porters who went with the CIA team in 1965 would tell the story of the nuclear device, and the villagers have been living in fear ever since,” said Narendra Rana from the Lata village near Nanda Devi’s peak.
His father, Dhan Singh Rana, was one of the porters who carried the device during the CIA’s mission in 1965.
“He told me there was a danger buried in the snow,” Rana said. “The villagers fear that as long as the device is buried in the snow, they are safe, but if it bursts, it will contaminate the air and water, and no one will be safe after that.”
During the Sino-Indian tensions in the 1960s, India cooperated with the US in surveillance after China conducted its first nuclear tests in 1964. The Nanda Devi mission was part of this cooperation and was classified for years. It only came under public scrutiny in 1978, when the story was broken by Outsider magazine.
The article caused an uproar in India, with lawmakers demanding the location of the nuclear device be revealed and calling for political accountability. The same year, then Prime Minister Morarji Desai set up a committee to assess whether nuclear material in the area near Nanda Devi could pollute the Ganges River, which originates there.
The Ganges is one of the world’s most crucial freshwater sources, with about 655 million people in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh depending on it for their essential needs.
The committee, chaired by prominent scientists, submitted its report a few months later, dismissing any cause for concerns, and establishing that even in the worst-case scenario of the device’s rupture, the river’s water would not be contaminated.
But for the villagers, the fear that the shell containing radioactive plutonium could break apart never goes away, and peace may only come once it is found.
Many believe the device, trapped within the glacier’s shifting ice, may have moved downhill over time.
Rana’s father told him that the device felt hot when it was carried, and he believed it might have melted its way into the glacier, remaining buried deep inside.
An imposing mass of rock and ice, Nanda Devi at 7,816 m is the second-highest mountain in India after Kangchenjunga.
When a glacier near the mountain burst in 2021, claiming over 200 lives, scientists explained that the disaster was due to global warming, but in nearby villages the incident was initially blamed on a nuclear explosion.
“They feared the device had burst. Those rescuing people were afraid they might die from radiation,” Rana said. “If any noise is heard, if any smoke appears in the sky, we start fearing a leak from the nuclear device.”
The latent fear surfaces whenever natural disasters strike or media coverage puts the missing device back in the spotlight. Most recently, a New York Times article on the CIA mission’s 60th anniversary reignited the unease.
“The apprehensions are genuine. After 1965, Americans came twice to search for the device. The villagers accompanied them, but it could not be found, which remains a concern for the local community,” said Atul Soti, an environmentalist in Joshimath, Uttarakhand, about 50 km from Nanda Devi.
“People are worried. They have repeatedly sought answers from the government, but no clear response has been provided so far. Periodically, the villagers voice their concerns, and they need a definitive government statement on this issue.”
Despite repeated queries whenever media attention arises, Indian officials have not released detailed updates since the Desai-appointed committee submitted its findings.
“The government should issue a white paper to address people’s concerns. The white paper will make it clear about the status of the device, and whether leakage from the device could pollute the Ganges River,” Soti told Arab News.
“The government should be clear. If the government is not reacting, then it further reinforces the fear.”
