Denying a motion by the Justice Department, a panel from the DC Circuit Court ruled that disgraced former president Donald Trump must sit for a deposition for the attorneys for Peter Strzok, the former FBI agent who was forced out of his job after he investigated Trump’s connections to Russia.

The ruling is a minor setback for the Justice Department, which had an obligation to challenge the ruling made by a lower court about a President sitting for a deposition regarding an Executive Branch personnel decision.

In a 2-1 decision, with Biden and Obama appointees voting for accountability and a GW Bush nominee in dissent, the panel determined the unique nature of Strzok’s case required the normal deference to Oval Office decisions be set aside in the interest of justice.  “Before authorizing the deposition, however, the district court held multiple hearings on the relevant issues, considered several rounds of additional briefing, and required respondents to exhaust other means of obtaining the information they sought. The district court limited the deposition to two hours, and to a narrow set of topics it identified. Having employed particular “deference and restraint” considering the separation-of-powers concerns at issue, see Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 731, 753 (1982), the district court ultimately concluded that “extraordinary circumstances” warranted the deposition of the former President.”