Former President Donald Trump has been trying since March to serve former FBI officials Lisa Page and Peter Strzok with a 108-page lawsuit — but hasn’t been able to find either of them, according to new court papers.
Trump “has attempted service unsuccessfully six (6) times” on both Page and Strzok, with the most recent attempts failing on June 30, his lawyers told a federal judge in Florida.
The holdup in serving Strzok and Page was revealed in a brief status report on the massive lawsuit, in which Trump accuses lead defendant Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee, former British Inteligence officer Christopher Steele and some 20 Democrats with a sweeping conspiracy to tie Trump to Russia during the 2016 presidential election.
It’s not clear how, or where, Trump’s lawyers have looked for the two, who have maintained a separate, but public, profile since their brief extra-marital affair became front page news in 2017, after the DOJ disclosed their private text communications to reporters.
“I’m still not a party to the lawsuit — not until the plaintiff effects service, which they have not done,” Strzok told Insider Tuesday night, noting that he has hardly been hiding from process servers.
Strzok recently wrote a book, “Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump.” Also, Trump’s lawyers have his Fairfax, Va., address, Strzok said, explaining that he knows this because he has been following the court filings online.
On three occasions, Trump’s lawyers published subpoenas into the public docket that included the home addresses of Strzok, Page, and co-defendants and fellow FBI alums James Comey, Andrew McCabe, and Kevin Klinesmith — filings that were subsequently redacted of addresses on order of a judge.
“I’m on CNN as an analyst, and each time the chyron says Fairfax, Va., so it’s not a secret,” he said.
“I don’t know why they haven’t served me. I don’t know if they’re not serious. I don’t know if it’s incompetence. I don’t know if they’re playing games. I just don’t know — but of course, with Trump, it could be all of those things.”
Since 2017, the two, who worked with former special counsel Robert Mueller on the Russian disinformation probe, have filed separate lawsuits against their former employers.
Page is practicing national security and tech law and has joined NBC News as a national security and legal analyst.
Trump’s filing did say that the Department of Justice has declined to accept service on behalf of the two former employees, though last week a DOJ attorney “did assist in providing information” on who their attorneys may be.
Page and Strzok appear to be the only defendants who remain to be served with papers more than three months after the suit was filed.
In that time, Clinton alone has submitted a half-dozen filings, including, from back in April, a still-pending motion to dismiss the case.
Lawyers for Trump and Page did not immediately respond to requests for comment.