No bombshells but plenty of reverberations
Now what?
The long-awaited testimony by Robert Mueller before two congressional committees Wednesday didn’t drop bombshells or spark the fireworks many Democrats had hoped for, but it will have repercussions.
From impeachment to indictment, the former special counsel’s appearance could have an impact on Republicans and Democrats, on congressional decisions in the next few weeks and the election next year:
Impeaching the president
It just got less likely.
Of 235 House Democrats, more than 90 have endorsed launching an impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump – not including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Before the hearings, those who support impeachment saw Mueller’s testimony as the most
likely way to ignite outrage and perhaps meet Pelosi’s demand that there be broad public sentiment and the possibility of winning a conviction in the Republican-controlled Senate before moving ahead.
Though Mueller outlined an assault on democracy by Russians and a response by Trump and his presidential campaign that was “problematic” and worse, his testimony left Democrats frustrated. As he had warned beforehand, he declined to expand on the contents of his 448-page report, two years in the making.
He refused to be cinematic, to deliver a sound bite or create a viral moment. “I refer you to the report,” he repeated again and again.
In the opening moments, Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., prompted Mueller to state that he hadn’t cleared Trump of allegations of obstructing justice, noting that Justice Department guidelines prohibit indicting a sitting president.
“Did you actually totally exonerate the president?” Nadler asked. “No,” Mueller replied.
Over the hours that followed, he declined to opine on whether impeachment was warranted. “I’m not going to talk about that issue,” he told Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La.
Mueller’s testimony didn’t provide the clear tipping point that some Democrats wanted – enough to, say, get an additional two dozen or so representatives on board that would put a majority of the Democratic caucus behind an inquiry.
Indicting the president
Mueller confirmed several times that a president could be indicted for obstruction of justice or other crimes after he left office.
Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., asked whether Trump could wait out an indictment by winning a second term. “What if a president serves beyond the statute of limitations?” he asked.
Mueller said he didn’t have an answer. The statute of limitations on federal obstruction charges, Quigley said, is five years.
Public opinion
Mueller’s testimony may have hardened public views, but it’s hard to believe it reshaped them.
Before the hearing, most Americans opposed impeaching Trump. In an ABC News/Washington Post Poll this month, nearly six in 10 said the House shouldn’t launch impeachment proceedings. That’s true even though a majority called Mueller credible and said the special counsel’s report didn’t exonerate Trump.
On this, there was predictably a partisan divide. Most Democrats in the poll supported impeachment; most Republicans said Trump had been cleared.
Nominating a Democrat
Mueller sometimes stumbled in his responses, often asked that questions be repeated and, understandably, looked exhausted by the time he testified before the House Intelligence Committee in the afternoon. When Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Ariz., lobbed what was intended to be a softball, Mueller was unable to remember which president appointed him as U.S. attorney in Massachusetts. (He said George H.W. Bush; it was Ronald Reagan.)
He was less nimble and more hesitant than he had been in dozens of hearings before Congress during his time as FBI director.
“This is delicate to say, but Mueller, whom I deeply respect, has not publicly testified before Congress in at least six years,” David Axelrod, the top strategist in Barack Obama’s campaigns, wrote on Twitter. “And he does not appear as sharp as he was then.” Mueller will turn 75 next month.
Democrats have expressed concern – fairly or not, and at the risk of being accused of ageism – about the prospect of nominating a presidential candidate in the 70s to challenge Trump, 73, next year. Elizabeth Warren is 70. Joe Biden is 76. Bernie Sanders is 77.
Alex Castellanos, a veteran Republican strategist who has worked on several presidential campaigns, drew that line in a tweet: “Note to sleepy @Joe_Biden: In next debate, do not say, ‘Could you repeat that question?’ ”
Trump’s takeaway
“NO COLLUSION, NO OBSTRUCTION!” Trump declared in one tweet as the hearing was about to begin. In another, he denounced the Mueller investigation as “The Greatest Witch Hunt in U.S. History, by far!”
By the time the hearings drew to a close, the president seemed jubilant in a string of more than two dozen tweets and retweets that ridiculed Mueller and claimed vindication for himself.
“TRUTH IS A FORCE OF NATURE!” he wrote.