Himes: Mueller will show, but most likely won’t say much
WASHINGTON — You read it here first: Rep. Jim Himes says he’d bet his paycheck — or maybe half his paycheck — if special counsel Robert Mueller makes significant news when he appears before the House Judiciary Committee to answer questions about his Trump-Russia probe.
“I want Mueller to testify like everyone else does, but I wouldn’t except to learn a lot of new information,” Himes said. “I would bet my next paycheck Mueller is not going to come in there and drop bombs.”
Everyone else inside the Beltway and numerous places outside are lining up their takeout pizza and Buffalo-wing orders for what promises to be high Washington drama at its finest. (Original date was May 15 but that is likely to slip.)
Himes is used to being a party of one, not afraid to go against the grain.
But, wait, does he know something everyone else in the world does not?
Himes bases his conclusion on knowing Mueller from the time between 2009 when Himes arrived on Capitol Hill and 2013 when Mueller stepped down as FBI director. Mueller is the consummate prosecutorial perfectionist — and minimalist. In other words, if he doesn’t need to go there, he won’t.
But what about the many unanswered questions assumed but not confirmed in the Mueller report? One example: Would Mueller have indicted (or recommended indictment or otherwise indicated sufficient evidence exists for criminal charges) President Donald Trump for obstruction, but for the Justice Department legal opinion that a sitting president cannot be indicted?
Mueller was ambiguous about that in the report, noting the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel opinion but also stating that the question of the legal standards for obstruction charges remains up in the air.
Himes insists there is an easy answer for Mueller to that question.
“He would answer that ‘because of the OLC opinion I did not finish the analysis I would normally do as a prosecutor to determine whether the crime of obstruction was committed, so I can’t answer,’” Himes said. “I would bet half my paycheck that’s his answer.”
So if you want to take Himes up on his bet, you know where to find him.
How much money are we talking about? A workaday House member gets $174,000 annually.
You do the math!
The House Appropriations Committee approved language in its Labor-HHS-Education spending bill directing Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to do something she obviously does not want to do: Bar the use of federal funds to arm teachers and train them in firearms use as part of Trump’s strategy to deter mass-shootings in schools.
The language harkens back to the testy exchange last month between DeVos and former teacher Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-5th District. At the hearing, Hayes brought forth an internal Education Department “decision memo” that said the secretary has the power to prohibit a federal role in arming teachers.
When DeVos shrugged and said it’s up to Congress, Hayes waved the document in the air and said: “You have the authority, if you so choose. Read the memo!”
But in the belt-and-suspenders universe in which Congress operates, Democrats who dominate House Appropriations gave DeVos the tools she insisted she needed.
“Teachers and students deserve to work and learn in a safe environment, and local school districts deserve to have clarity,” Hayes said in a statement. “Enough is enough.”
The idea of arming teachers gained steam after the Newtown mass shooting in 2012, when NRA CEO memorably stated that only good guys with guns can stop bad guys with guns. The concept of sharpshooting teachers is anathema to gun-violence-prevention advocates in Connecticut and elsewhere. Teachers with guns not only sends the wrong message on school mass shootings, they say, it also puts the critical shoot-or-don’t-shoot decision in the hands of ill-prepared amateurs. (And for what it’s worth, the number of mistaken shootings by welltrained police officers is hardly reassuring.)
The Senate must pass its own version of the Labor-HHS-Education bill, likely without comparable language. Then it’s up to a conference committee to slice and dice. So no one can say for sure whether the provision will be in or out when the sausage finally rolls off the assembly line.