Will Mueller shift US impeachment mood?
Testimony could produce both drama and clarity
Robert Mueller’s testimony today before the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees is not about gathering new evidence. It is a Democraticsponsored public relations campaign, and it’s long overdue. If people believe that the Russia investigation is a “witch hunt,” as President Donald Trump has endlessly claimed, no amount of testimonial detail will matter.
To start, Mueller must explain every American’s “compelling interest” in “preventing foreign influence over the U.S. political process.” Next, Democrats must ask Mueller for a broad explanation of how Russia hacked our election, which candidate Russia intended to win the White House, and the evidence showing how the Trump campaign eagerly accepted Russian help.
This information has not been discussed by Mueller, whom many swing voters respect. So committee members, please don’t waste time on speeches. Every self-indulgent sound bite is a minute less that Mueller will testify. If skeptical minds are going to be enlightened, it will be through his narration.
The primary questioning should debunk Trump’s false claims that Mueller found no obstruction or collusion. It isn’t enough for Mueller to recount how Trump fired the FBI director and tried to fire Mueller, strong-arm the attorney general and influence witnesses. Ask him to explain why he believes that these and other incidents in his report are evidence of obstruction.
Committee members should be able to get Mueller to unequivocally state he found this evidence. And, to undercut the president’s “I wasn’t charged so I’m not guilty” mantra, they need Mueller to testify that because Trump cannot be legally indicted, even overwhelming evidence of obstruction would result in no charges. And let’s encourage Mueller to say whether he meant for Attorney General William Barr to make a legal decision on obstruction before Congress had reviewed his report.
On conspiracy, or “collusion,” Mueller’s report offers damning evidence that Donald Trump Jr., Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner attended a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting for the purpose of obtaining election assistance from a foreign government. What largely stopped Mueller from charging them with a campaign finance conspiracy was his concern that he could not prove they knew it was illegal to accept such assistance.
Committee members must ask questions that lead Mueller to contradict the president’s “no collusion” claim. They should get him to acknowledge evidence of Trump campaign collusion, despite insufficient evidence to show Trump Jr., Manafort and Kushner knew it was illegal. Mueller’s testimony is a chance for Democrats to draw a line in the sand. They need to place Trump and his campaign on notice that future offers of election assistance from a foreign government cannot be met with “I’d take it.”
Finally, every time a new piece of evidence has come to light since the release of Mueller’s report, Trump dismisses it as a Democratic “do-over.” My last trial for the Justice Department came at the end of a four-year investigation. Yet I received a critical piece of evidence only days before trial. There is going to be more evidence implicating Trump in the Russia investigation.
In his report, Mueller said his findings are based only on the evidence he possessed at the time he wrote the report. Let’s hear him reiterate this in his own words. It is imperative that Democrats take this opportunity to explain that new evidence routinely develops in criminal investigations as time passes. Mueller should make clear that new evidence is legitimately used to reconsider conclusions, including a decision to decline prosecution.
Mueller’s testimony is not the occasion to politely divvy up questioning time. Leave this one to the A-team. If public opinion is ever going to lurch to a call for impeachment, it will rest on Democrats’ success in extracting a compelling TV version of the Mueller report from its author. Everything is riding on Mueller’s testimony.