(CNSNews.com) - Both Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), the head of the House Freedom Caucus, said on Wednesday they've found more evidence of political bias against President Trump among FBI employees.
"Oh, There is more evidence of political bias," Meadows told Fox News's Laura Ingraham Wednesday night. "We've got some additional emails and some additional text messages in the last four or five days."
Earlier on Wednesday, Grassley told Fox News, "There's going to be more news coming out that would say that this has been political bias against President Trump."
The lawmakers presumably were talking about Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, the FBI employees who both worked on the Hillary Clinton email investigation and then moved on to the Trump-Russia investigation, even ending up for a while on the special counsel's team.
Their text messages criticizing Trump and Trump supporters, sometimes in vulgar terms, were the focus of a recent inspector-general report. The IG also found text messages in which Strzok promised to “stop” Trump from becoming president and talked about an insurance plan to prevent it from happening.
Strzok is scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees later this morning, at 10 a.m.
Lisa Page, meanwhile, defied a congressional subpoena on Wednesday, refusing to appear before congressional investigators behind closed doors.
Page said she needed more time to prepare, but Meadows said he's not buying it:
"Well, I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt this morning until I called DOJ. She has had seven months to prepare because we started initially asking her to come in in December of 2017.
"Secondly, she wasn't even going to be prepared. FBI reached out to her counsel to say, by the way, you may want to come in and review some of these documents. And then the third thing is actually she reviewed documents yesterday at 3:45, reviewed most of the documents. The only thing she didn't review was top-secret documents that we didn't anticipate any questions arising from that anyway.
"So, you know, the attorney is doing a disservice to her to suggest that she was going to come in a voluntary way."
Meadows said he hopes Page will appear either today (Thursday) or Friday. The House committees gave her the option of appearing in public today with Strzok; or in private.
And if she doesn't appear, "She will be held in contempt," Meadows said. "Obviously, at that point, she gets referred to the Department of Justice for prosecution."
And if that happens, Meadows continued, "all of a sudden it's incumbent upon the DOJ to actually act and press charges."
Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said if Page fails to appear again, contempt proceedings could be initiated tomorrow (Friday).
President Trump, tweeting from Brussels on Wednesday, also weighed in on the Strzok-Page situation, in the following order:
-- "Ex-FBI LAYER [he meant lawyer] Lisa Page today defied a House of Representatives issued Subpoena to testify before Congress! Wow, but is anybody really surprised! Together with her lover, FBI Agent Peter Strzok, she worked on the Rigged Witch Hunt, perhaps the most tainted and corrupt case EVER!"
-- "How can the Rigged Witch Hunt proceed when it was started, influenced and worked on, for an extended period of time, by former FBI Agent/Lover Peter Strzok? Read his hate filled and totally biased Emails and the answer is clear!"
And finally:
-- "As I head out to a very important NATO meeting, I see that FBI Lover/Agent Lisa Page is dodging a Subpoena & is refusing to show up and testify. What can she possibly say about her statements and lies. So much corruption on the other side. Where is the Attorney General? @FoxNews"