It doesn’t seem as if Mueller is going to give Democrats what they want on that front, i.e., he’s not going to say that if Trump weren’t president, he would have charged him with obstruction of justice. In fact, he ended his exchange with Jeffries by saying, “I’m not supportive of that analytical charge.”
Wow, that was one of Mueller’s longest answers, and he said he didn’t necessarily agree with Jeffries’s analysis.
There’s a chorus of “no one is above the law” from the Democrats.
The Democrats keep coming back, again and again, to the fact that Trump tried to fire Mueller. Jeffries is now walking through the elements of obstruction of justice, trying to tie each one to Trump’s behavior outlined in the report.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries is up right now, and he’s now part of the Democratic leadership as chair of the party’s House caucus.
If Mueller were going to push back on narratives about the investigation being misguided, now would be the time.
And it doesn’t really look like he’s going to.
Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz is up now. He’s a close ally of President Trump, and he’s the one who is now under an ethics investigation for tweeting what could be construed as a threat toward Michael Cohen ahead of Cohen’s hearing.
Richmond focused on a very important moment in the report, when Trump was, according to the report, pressuring White House Counsel Don McGahn to deny a report that Mueller had tried to fire Mueller. House Democrats have tried to get McGahn to testify, but the White House has blocked his testimony. They might be able to get a court to force McGahn’s testimony, but that will be a slow, slow process.
Rep. Richmond says something a few of his colleagues have said today: “We will hold the president accountable.” Friendly reminder: Impeachment would begin in the House Judiciary Committee.
Richmond is the head of the Congressional Black Caucus and has been a prominent surrogate for former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, so he’s pretty establishmenty. However, he also supports starting an impeachment inquiry. Out of the eight Democrats who have spoken so far today, three (Richmond, Cohen and Jackson Lee) support beginning impeachment proceedings.
Adam Kelsey over at ABC News is tracking which 2020 Democratic presidential candidates are weighing in on the hearing, and he says that only two have commented on Mueller’s testimony so far — Seth Moulton and Tom Steyer.
They are back. Democratic Rep. Cedric Richmond is questioning now.
I think Perry is right that this isn’t in the news Friday.
That’s a good point, Perry. The Cohen hearing was much more interesting than this, and remember how much that ChAnGeD eVeRyThInG?
It’s hard for me to see any real breakthrough moments in this hearing. The Cohen hearing, in contrast, featured him saying a lot of very negative, detailed things about Trump. Comey’s appearances featured him talking pretty expansively at times. Obviously, Brett Kavanaugh’s hearing was explosive. Will Mueller’s appearance be in the news by, say, Friday? Will anything that happened here create a viral moment that people will remember? I’m not seeing that. That’s not really Democrats’ fault. (Mueller wants to be dull.) It’s not really Mueller’s fault. (The report was full of information and the Democrats basically sat on it and did nothing — it is not his job to do their job.)
In today’s least-surprising development, President Trump has tweeted. So yeah, he’s watching.
TBH, feels like a lot more than that, Erin.
Mueller has said some variation of “refer to the report,” “direct to the report” or “I’ll leave that to our report,” 21 times, according to an ABC News count. Mueller has asked for a question to be repeated 10 times.
I guess I feel like the conventional wisdom (such as I’m on CNN right now) is a little off-kilter. Mueller signaled very clearly ahead of time that he wasn’t going to go much beyond the scope of his report in his answers. And Republicans, knowing that, have designed a series of questions that will make him look non-responsive. But I don’t think that Mueller is performing poorly, per se. He’s doing exactly what he said he was going to do.
One interesting moment, Sarah, was when Mueller directly said he was not a candidate for the job of FBI director. Trump has said (as recently as this morning!) that Mueller was conflicted because he was interviewing for the job. Mueller flatly refuted that under oath.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1154003030267899905
Wow, that’s a 🔥 take, Nathaniel! I thought both Ratcliffe and Jordan had good moments for the Republicans. And Lofgren for the Democrats, as she got Mueller to say that Russia did try to sway the election for Trump.
Sarah, this clearly is not the focus of this hearing, but this Mueller quote from his opening statement was the most significant moment for me so far: “Over the course of my career, I’ve seen a number of challenges to our democracy. The Russian government’s effort to interfere in our election is among the most serious. As I said on May 29, this deserves the attention of every American.”
Sarah, I would say perhaps the only impactful exchange so far was the very first one, with Nadler, when Mueller delivered one of his few direct answers: No, the report did not exonerate the president.
OK, first hour and a half done. What are the big moments so far?
The DOJ investigation of the origins of the Russia investigation is very important. Jordan flagged it there. Barr has been very effective for Trump in a number of ways. And I think this hearing is another example of how Barr is playing by 2019 rules and Mueller is playing by 1989 rules — and Barr is more effective because he is willing to break with norms and push the lines really hard while Mueller wants to be above it all. Mueller has basically refused to defend his report — and this is an unwise course of action if he wants to the report to be seen as definitive and accurate.
Our friends at ABC News have been tracking 2020 Democrats calling for impeachment proceedings and find that the number currently stands at 14, including:
- Cory Booker
- Kirsten Gillibrand
- Kamala Harris
- John Hickenlooper
- Amy Klobuchar
- Beto O’Rourke
- Elizabeth Warren
- Julian Castro
- Seth Moulton
- Wayne Messam
- Tim Ryan
- Bernie Sanders
- Tom Steyer
- Bill de Blasio
Warren was one of the first 2020 candidates to call for impeachment, and Pete Buttigieg has also come very close to calling for it, saying in May that “this is as close to an impeachment referral as it gets.”
We just passed the hour and a half mark, and Mueller still hasn’t answered a question with more than just a few words. We still have a looong way to go (Mueller is scheduled to testify before the House Intelligence Committee at noon), and I wonder if he’ll be able to maintain this level of discipline (or monotony??) for the next four hours or so.
They are going to take a five minute break. Is this a strategy meeting?
I mean, people might need to use the bathroom, too.
One of the more head-spinning conspiracy theories to come out of the Mueller investigation is that Joseph Mifsud, the Maltese academic who tried to put George Papadopoulos in touch with the Kremlin, was actually a Western intelligence plant. That’s what Jordan seems to be alluding to when he’s asking why Mifsud wasn’t charged.
It’s probably telling that the chyron on CNN reads, “MUELLER: TRUMP WAS NOT EXONERATED.” That was established in the first few minutes of the first questioner’s time.
The Republicans on the committee seem intent on putting Mueller on trial. After today, keep in mind, it’s exceedingly likely that Mueller never speaks publicly on this topic again.
Yeah, so that’s the most important thing that I think is happening. I assumed the point of this hearing was to have Mueller basically orally present the report. He has pointedly refused to do so. So we have essentially congressional Democrats reading the report and Mueller nodding.
It seems like we’re all assuming that the status quo is good for Republicans, but I’m not so sure? I mean, clearly the Mueller hearing had the potential to make things a lot worse for Republicans, but the status quo still isn’t great for them. Their president is unpopular and enmeshed in enough scandal that there is a serious question over whether to impeach him. And, along a different line of logic, you could argue that this hearing could ultimately benefit Republicans if it pushes more Democrats to want to impeach, given that impeachment is generally unpopular among the public and may backfire politically against Democrats.
As someone who deals a lot with mics, Mueller’s inability to speak directly into the microphone is distressing.
The Democrats are trying to get Mueller to answer their questions in ways that would play well on TV — and he is completely refusing. A supercut of this hearing will just be Mueller saying, “I direct you to what’s in the report,” over and over again.
And I think Democrats also aren’t helped by Mueller pretty constantly referring to the report rather than saying something himself that will make for an easy soundbite.
Also, the format isn’t helping the Democrats. Flipping back and forth between questioning from Republicans and Democrats makes it harder for the Democrats to establish a clear narrative and confusion benefits the Republicans.
Sarah, it seems to me that Democrats’ task here would be easier, since the report itself is pretty damning and much of the American public hasn’t read it. Given that, I agree with Amelia that Republicans are doing a good job of redirecting.
I think Republicans are doing a fairly good job of muddying the waters. And Democrats, in my view, aren’t doing as much as they could to dramatize some of the most explosive moments in the report. There’s been a lot of play-by-play — “first this happened, then that happened.” That’s been hard to follow.
I’m not sure either side is getting anything notable out of him. So I guess a tie?
Let me get a quick pulse check. Who do you think is doing a better job of questioning Mueller — Republicans or Democrats?
Democratic Rep. Karen Bass is the first of the 13 questioners today who doesn’t have a law degree.
I agree with Nate on that point. Mueller did not know what to do with that question.
Roby’s question on leaks was pretty effective, I think, and Mueller doesn’t really have a good answer.
That seems hard to believe, Rick.
A side note, but Mueller just told Roby that his office didn’t write the report with the expectation that it would be made public. Surprising?
Roby is also one of just 13 Republican women left in the House.
Roby disavowed Trump after the “Access Hollywood” video came out. This is a moment she probably could not have imagined then.
Roby is an interesting figure — she was critical of Trump in the 2016 campaign and won reelection with less than 50 percent that year, while a write-in got about 10 percent. She survived a pretty serious primary challenge in 2018, having to win in a runoff after winning less than 50 percent in the primary.
Gohmert was kind of saying the same thing that Attorney General Bill Barr did in his congressional testimony a few months ago — that Trump felt he was being falsely attacked, and that’s why he responded the way he did.