Photo: () | ©AFP

Washington (AFP) – A former FBI lawyer was headed to Congress Friday to provide closed-door testimony about the texts critical of Donald Trump that she exchanged with her FBI agent lover during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Republicans accuse the pair, Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, of deep anti-Trump bias as they helped conduct investigations of both Hillary Clinton and the candidate who would eventually become the US president.

Page — whose affair with Strzok has led Trump to dub them the “FBI lovers” — struck a deal with the House Judiciary Committee to testify privately after months of attempts to haul her before Congress, including defying a subpoena to testify publicly this week.

She will now face an intense grilling by Republican lawmakers adamant that her and Strzok’s political opinions clouded their judgment and impacted their work on the probes by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“This decision is long overdue,” Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte said in announcing the arrangement.

Page will appear before a joint meeting of the Judiciary and Oversight committees for a transcribed interview scheduled for 1:30 pm (1730 GMT), he said.

“Lisa Page is a key witness in our investigation and we need to hear from her about her role related to certain decisions made by the (Justice) Department and Bureau,” Goodlatte added.

Her appearance comes one day after extraordinary political fireworks at a congressional hearing, where Republicans launched blistering attacks on Strzok and accused him of letting his anti-Trump “animus” affect his work.

Strzok aggressively pushed back, stating “unequivocally and under oath: not once in my 26 years of defending my nation did my personal opinions impact any official action I took.”

Disclaimer: This story has not been edited by Siliconeer and is published from a syndicated feed. Siliconeer does not assume any liability for the above story. Validity of the above story is for 7 Days from original date of publishing. Content copyright AFP.