Complying with a subpoena, the former special counsel has agreed to appear in back-to-back public hearings this week before two House committees. Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., needed to issue a subpoena to persuade Mueller to appear, but the duo pledged in a letter that they will work with him to address his "legitimate concerns about preserving the integrity" of his probe and said they will respect his desire not to discuss the "several criminal investigations" that he referred to other Justice Department offices, which are ongoing.
Here are five things to watch for at the hearings:
1) Will Mueller say anything he hasn't said already?
Don't count on it.
"The report is my testimony," the former special counsel said on May 29. "Any testimony from this office would not go beyond our report. . . . I would not provide information beyond that which is already public in any appearance before Congress."
The 74-year-old is no novice. It seems exceptionally unlikely that Mueller will be baited into saying something he doesn't want to say. He's testified before Congress more than 50 times, including during high-profile hearings as FBI director after the 9/11 attacks and the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. The C-SPAN archive includes more than 140 hours of footage of him fielding questions from sometimes hostile lawmakers.
"Mueller is no longer a Justice Department employee, and after the special counsel's office formally closed . . . he and his personal representatives had been negotiating directly with the committee. . . . Those who know him well said that it was virtually impossible that he would ignore or reject a subpoena," per The Washington Post. "Still, Mueller is unlikely to answer Democrats' biggest question: whether he or his team thought there was sufficient evidence to charge President Trump with obstruction, were he not president."
He said during his brief remarks at the Justice Department that if his office "had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so," and he noted that the Constitution "requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing."
On the other hand: Even if Mueller just reads directly from his report, it could have a huge impact. Most Americans and even many lawmakers have not read the whole thing.
From a former FBI special agent who now teaches at Yale:
"Mueller has done an admirable job of staying out of political crossfire in order to protect the integrity of his investigation. But because his reasoning and conclusions (and facts!) have been misrepresented, he has a duty to clarify them for the American people. Glad he will," tweeted Asha Rangappa.
John Dean, the former White House counsel who flipped on Richard Nixon said Mueller can change the conversation.
"On July 17, 2019 Robert Mueller can (and I pray he does) define the Trump presidency as the obstructing justice criminal cabal the it is and define the remainder of Trump's term. As a former top federal official (DOJ & FBI) does he believe he has provided evidence of high crimes?" Dean tweeted.
2) Can Democratic leaders keep expectations in check and prevent the hearings from becoming a circus?
Privately, many House Democrats and their aides worry they will not be able to. This is going to be a television extravaganza. Cable channels on the right and left will cover Mueller's appearance wall to wall. The networks will likely preempt regularly scheduled programming. But if Mueller doesn't say anything groundbreaking or explosive despite weeks of hype, the narrative could be that his appearance was a let down for Democrats.
Moreover, it's politically imperative for Democrats that they look like they are motivated by a pursuit of the truth rather than a partisan vendetta against the president. Underscoring why that is, Trump cried "Presidential Harassment!" when news broke of Mueller's appearance.
Grandstanding lawmakers pulling sophomoric stunts could play into Trump's hands. Think of Rep. Steve Cohen eating Kentucky Fried Chicken when Attorney General Bill Barr didn't show up for a hearing.
An Obama-era Justice Department spokesman tried to keep expectations check:
"By the time Mueller testifies, it will be 17 weeks since he turned in his report, and the House will only have 11 weeks left in session this year. Calibrate expectations appropriately," Matthew Miller wrote on Twitter.
A Democratic senator from Hawaii emphasized that it will take an election to replace Trump:
"Robert Mueller will not save us." tweeted Brian Schatz.
3) Will Trump's Republican allies successfully cast doubt on Mueller's credibility and stain his sterling reputation? Or will they come across as partisan and unserious about his conclusions?
"Bob Mueller better be prepared," Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., told Laura Ingraham on Fox News. "Because I can tell you, he will be cross-examined for the first time and the American people will start to see the flaws in his report."
"The first thing he needs to answer is his own conflicts of interest," added Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow on Sean Hannity's Fox show.
Mueller's unwillingness to engage in a tit-for-tat with Trump and Co. throughout his probe kept him above the fray, but it also allowed the president's boosters to make scurrilous charges about the Vietnam veteran's integrity without strong pushback. Does he finally stand up for himself? Or does he cling to the idea that the quality of his work product speaks for itself?
Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., the only GOP lawmaker who has endorsed impeachment, does not sit on either committee so he won't get a round of questioning.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., continues to resist calls to hold hearings on the Mueller report in the other chamber. "It is 'case closed' for me," Graham told Hannity on Fox. "They can do anything they want to in the House, and I think it will blow up in their face. . . . The conclusions can't change."
4) Does Mueller's appearance make it easier or harder for Nancy Pelosi to contain calls for impeachment from her caucus?
"Members of Congress must honor our oath and our patriotic duty to follow the facts, so we can protect our democracy," the speaker said in a statement.
Nearly 80 House Democrats are now on the record calling for opening impeachment proceedings against Trump. Mueller's sole public appearance in May didn't include any new information, but it nonetheless offered a justification for a stream of Democratic presidential candidates to call for the president's impeachment. Something similar could happen again. More House Democrats could use whatever Mueller says as cover to change their positions - or they could oppose impeachment on the grounds that oversight is being conducted without it.
The answer probably depends primarily on whether Mueller's testimony moves the needle in the polls. As Pelosi loves to say, "Public sentiment is everything."
5) Will any of Mueller's lieutenants appear?
"An unspecified number of the special counsel's senior deputies are expected to accompany their former boss and testify in closed session when Mueller appears next month," Politico reports. "Schiff declined Tuesday night to identify the deputies, and it was also unclear if they would be appearing under subpoena. Democrats also haven't precluded bringing the former Mueller lawyers back for additional rounds. 'I think that's likely to happen after Mueller testifies,' said Rhode Island Rep. David Cicilline, another Judiciary Committee Democrat. 'There are additional witnesses. But he's the principal in terms of the contents of the report.' "
Mueller's team has been scattering. "Andrew Goldstein, a senior assistant special counsel under Mueller, will join the Cooley law firm as a litigation partner working in New York and Washington," Zapotosky reported on Monday. "On Friday, the firm Paul Weiss announced it would add Jeannie Rhee, another senior member of Mueller's team who had left the WilmerHale firm to work on the special counsel investigation. The Justice Department revealed this week that Michael Dreeben, a deputy solicitor general who has argued more than 100 cases before the Supreme Court and took a sabbatical to work with Mueller, would be leaving the department. . . . Last month, the firm Davis Polk announced it would add Greg Andres, the senior assistant special counsel who led the prosecution of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, to its litigation department in New York. . . . Andrew Weissmann, another senior assistant special counsel who is now a fellow at New York University School of Law, is writing a book."
-- No matter what happens, Mueller's testimony won't clear the thicket of thorny legal issues facing Trump. There was a significant development yesterday, for example, in one of the emoluments challenges:
"Rejecting a request from President Trump, a federal judge in Washington on Tuesday cleared the way for nearly 200 Democrats in Congress to continue their lawsuit against him alleging that his private business violates an anti-corruption provision of the Constitution," Ann Marimow, Jonathan O'Connell and Carol Leonnig report. "U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan declined to put the case on hold and said lawmakers could begin this week seeking financial information, interviews and other records from the Trump Organization. . . . Sullivan ordered the two parties to begin the process of requesting records and other information as part of a three-month discovery period from Friday to Sept. 27. . . . The Trump administration still can try to delay or block Democrats in Congress from issuing subpoenas for the president's closely held business information by appealing directly to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to intervene. . . . Justice Department spokeswoman Kelly Laco said the government would appeal."
The emoluments clauses bar the president from accepting gifts or payments from foreign or state governments. The cases, which seem destined for the Supreme Court, mark the first time that federal judges have interpreted these clauses. Trump is being sued by the members of Congress in one case and states in the other. In the second case, brought by the attorneys general of the District of Columbia and Maryland, a federal judge also denied the Trump administration's request for an immediate appeal.
But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, which is based in Richmond, Virginia, and hears Maryland-related federal appeals, agreed to review the case and temporarily blocked subpoenas for financial records and other documents related to Trump's Washington, D.C., hotel. The 4th Circuit heard oral argument in March and could issue a ruling at any time.
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