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Mueller Must Walk Tightrope in Testifying Publicly on His Probe

Mueller Must Walk Tightrope in Testifying Publicly on His Probe

(Bloomberg) -- Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller will be a reluctant witness with a daunting task when he testifies before Congress next month: resisting Democratic pressure to reveal secrets from his 22-month probe while defending his team’s work from Republican claims of political bias.

Mueller’s televised appearance July 17 before two committees in the Democratic-controlled House will rivet national attention once again on Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether President Donald Trump obstructed justice in the probe.

That’s a win for Democrats who have struggled to keep their investigations alive in the face of White House refusals to permit current and former officials to testify.

“It’s very important that the American people hear from Mr. Mueller about what he did find, what the results of that two-year investigation were, and not have to rely on the misinformation spread by the attorney general,” House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler told reporters Wednesday. “Or in reading the report, which most people have not."

Nadler said Mueller would appear first before his committee on July 17 and later that day before the House Intelligence Committee led by fellow Democrat Adam Schiff. They haven’t ruled out that the panels may go into closed sessions to take up some matters Mueller won’t discuss publicly.

Impeachment Question

Among the questions sure to be posed in public: Was Mueller suggesting that the House open an impeachment inquiry? That suspicion was based on his comment that Justice Department rules prohibit the indictment of a president while in office, and “the Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing.”

It’s a double-edged question for Democrats because House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has resisted initiating an impeachment inquiry that she thinks would backfire politically.

Trump signaled his reaction to Mueller’s agreement to testify under subpoena when it was announced Tuesday night in a two-word tweet -- “Presidential Harassment!” -- but his Republican supporters said they’re confident Mueller won’t prove as friendly a witness as Democrats suggest.

The former FBI director has indicated he has no intention of discussing anything publicly beyond the findings already made public in his report.

“I hope the special counsel’s testimony marks an end to the political gamesmanship that Judiciary Democrats have pursued at great cost to taxpayers,” said Representative Doug Collins of Georgia, the panel’s top Republican. “May this testimony bring to House Democrats the closure that the rest of America has enjoyed for months, and may it enable them to return to the business of legislating."

‘Democrat Trump Haters’

Mueller faces other perils in testifying publicly. Republicans are expected to attack the integrity of his investigation and staff, which Trump has portrayed as “Angry Democrat Trump Haters,” and to address their contention that the Russia probe was compromised before he took it over by anti-Trump bias in the FBI and Justice Department.

“We have legitimate questions about how all these people ended up on the Mueller team that had a history of donating financially to Democrat -- there did not seem to be sufficient balance," Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, a Judiciary Committee Republican, said in a tweet Wednesday.

Trump also has asserted executive privilege over all of Mueller’s investigative documents being sought by House Democrats. But Attorney General William Barr has said previously that he had no objection to Mueller testifying, and Jay Sekulow, a personal attorney for Trump, said Wednesday that “there are no legal moves being made” to prevent the hearings.

“The president turned this issue over to the attorney general. Attorney General Barr said it was fine for Bob Mueller to testify, and now he is going to testify,” Sekulow said in an interview on CNN.

It wasn’t clear whether the Justice Department would seek to impose any conditions on Mueller’s appearance. As a former department employee, he’d be expected to consult with department officials beforehand.

To contact the reporters on this story: Chris Strohm in Washington at cstrohm1@bloomberg.net;Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, Larry Liebert

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