Robert Mueller's Testimony

[RichardRay]

Robert Mueller said that the report is his testimony. I think that his testimony will be great if he just shows up with staff and begins his answers to each question with a citation from the report. He may decide that some points require translation, but I don’t think he needs to add anything in addition to what’s there.

It’s really all in there, folks.

[FBaggins]

1. I suspect that's close to what we'll get... and that many here will be upset

For instance... he likely won't answer "does this sentence here mean that you would have indicted Trump if the DOJ guidelines didn't say that you couldn't???"

[ProudMNDemocrat]

2. To hear Mueller say so and put the Republicans in their place.....

Will be much watched TV.

A war hero, by the book type of Prosecutor, Public Servant who has given years of his life to America, will chew up anyone who dares to paint him as anything he is not.

[empedocles]

3. Agreed. The problem is that grandstanders from Committee 'cons and dems, will discredit

Mueller to some degree to please their aggressive, [and relatively not well-informed?], constituents.

[PRETZEL]

5. Most of the grandstanders will be on the Republican side,

and with any hope, we'll hear alot of statements similar to John Dean's comment to Matt Gaetz' rant and his attempts to discredit him,

paraphrasing "is there a question in there?"

As pointed out earlier, hopefull we will hear alot of "As I laid out in my report.........." type answers.

[empedocles]

7. Dems will do more damage to Mueller, than the discounted 'cons

[PRETZEL]

12. I don't see how that would advance their case

to try and do damage to Mueller,

Aside from some questions concerning timing such as if Barr stopped his work, I would think that the Dem's line of questioning should focus on the report as presented.

Once the fight over the redactions is completed (whenever that may be) then Mueller can be subpoena'd back for another round of questioning.

[empedocles]

16. Dems pushing for Mueller to attend hearings where a number of them hope to

get partisanly useful information from Mueller, which Mueller has made clear, that is not beneficial to the larger case against trump. The additional push for public hearings guarantees grandstanding - professed proclamations about the public right to know notwithstanding.

[PRETZEL]

17. Well, if Nadler and Schiff allow the Dems to do that

then they deserve the backlash that would be coming their way,

[empedocles]

18. Not that easy to 'allow' or curb tv dems. Once the process is started, not

easy to control.

Same problem with starting formal Impeachment processes; once started, hard to rein in the stampeding herds.

[ego_nation]

4. Will he be able to speak on the redacted portions or the report? nt

[Hoyt]

6. Afraid Mueller went to great lengths to say, over and over, "We identified no evidence."

21 different times -- regarding the main allegations of trump and/or his campaign working with the Russians -- Mueller concluded "we found no evidence."

He even concluded that Kushner and Junior met with Ruskies at trump tower, but were too stupid to possess the requisite "intent" to violate the law. Mueller further concluded that since he couldn't put a value on it, the government couldn't go after Manafort for giving polling data to Ruskies. He spend 2 years letting trump and his crime family off the hook.

While Mueller didn't totally punt on Obstruction, he muddied things up so much that it will be difficult to get him on obstruction, even though it was done in plain sight for everyone to see.

Unless something miraculous happens, Mueller will pretty much say what he did in May -- a bunch of nothing.

Personally, I think we ought to quit trying to undermine trump with Collusion/Conspiracy -- the 2016 election ain't going to be reversed at this point, and Mueller let us down -- and go after him for interning children, racism, incompetence,violating oath of office, destroying foreign relations, dereliction of duty, unbecoming conduct, rape, and the like.

While working with Ruskies to undermine election and obstruction ought to be enough, these other issues are probably a bigger deal.

[RichardRay]

8. How thoroughly have you read the report?

How much analysis? If you’ve not read it, see Ben Wittes (Lawfare.com) ‘Notes on the Mueller Report: a Reading Diary.

Mueller did his job, it’s time for Congress to step up.

[Hoyt]

10. Apparently, much more thoroughly than you.

Mueller did not do his job regarding the underlying allegations of conspiracy, collusion, or whatever you want to call it -- unless his job was to let trump and his crime family off the hook. He let them off the hook over 20 times.

He also knew Obstruction was not going to bring trump down, and was way to wishy washy with that.

[RichardRay]

14. I guess we'll just have to disagree.

I’ve read it several times, cover to cover, other times with analyses at hand. I think you missed the point of the report.

[Hoyt]

15. You must of missed the part where he discusses each allegation --

trump tower meeting, numerous other meetings with Ruskies, etc. -- and then concludes there was not enough evidence to charge anyone.

I guess we interpret such comments as "the evidence was not sufficient to charge any member of the trump Campaign," differently. I read it that Mueller went out of his way to let trump, his family and campaign off the hook.

Here are just three of the examples from the report where Mueller discusses various issues, but concluded there isn't evidence, or enough evidence, to do anything about it:

1. "Second, while the investigation identified numerous links between individuals with ties to
the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign, the evidence was not sufficient to support criminal charges. Among other things, the evidence was not sufficient to charge any Campaign official as an unregistered agent of the Russian government or other Russian principal. And our evidence about the June 9, 2016 meeting and WikiLeaks' s releases of hacked materials was not sufficient to charge a criminal campaign-finance violation. Further, the evidence was not sufficient to charge that any member of the Trump Campaign conspired with representatives of the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election."

2. "The investigation did not identify evidence that any U.S. persons conspired or coordinated with the IRA."

3. "The Office did not identify evidence of a connection between Manafort' s sharing polling data and Russia's interference in the election, which had already been reported by U.S. media outlets at the time of the August 2 meeting."


There are many more like this, including some real contortions letting Kush and Junior off the hook for the trump tower meeting by saying they are too stupid to possess the requisite "intent" to violate the law.

[Nuggets]

19. +1000 nt

[rsdsharp]

9. There are questions to be asked that aren't in the report.

Such as: Did AG Barr order your to shut down your investigation before you were ready.

If not, why did you ask for, and receive, a 6 month extension of the grand jury shortly before Barr became AG?

Etc., etc. . .

[kentuck]

11. I had forgotten about the 6 month extension request.

Good question.

[RANDYWILDMAN]

13. Interesting...

Will he say one word about his interactions with BARR and all the cases he dropped off to BARR that just dropped, on April Fools day of all days. (Why hasn't the BARR story been a headline story on every network...)

This so far is, worse then Fitzmas because you knew a Bush was involved, then the coverup was on, we had the talking heads tell us what a stand up guy Mueller is, now he it looks like Mueller was the first cover man.

[Nuggets]

20. Rod Rosenstein hand picked Mueller

the first cover man.

Comey and McCabe helped throw the election.
Rosenstein and Mueller hired for the detailed cover up. Our FBI leadership is corrupt.

The constant “by the book” SO honorable is baloney or he’d quit hiding like a coward and fight to stop this .
Instead they are trying to lay it all on Dems.

Who is buying this theater anymore?

Mueller is helping Trump as are ALL the Republicans

[Hoyt]

21. Darn sure looks like it to me. Maybe Mueller will find some guts in July. Not counting on it.