This is what this is about. pic.twitter.com/Wb739kdXcM
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) July 24, 2019
Already I think Adam Schiff is doing a better job at this in his opening statement. Statute laws aren’t really the point. It’s about disloyalty to country and corruption. Trump encouraged and cooperated with a foreign power to help win the election and make money.
This is a remarkable passage. One of the Republican members on the Judiciary Committee just questioned whether the troll farm behind the election interference campaign had any connection with the Russian government.
GOP Rep McClintock accuses Mueller of defaming Russian government by claiming the Russian government was tied to the Russian troll farm which interfered in 2016 election. pic.twitter.com/xPY8kruxfK
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) July 24, 2019
It is worth noting the essence of the Republican argument is that the President really should not have been investigated since he could not be indicted. And if he must be investigated the public shouldn’t learn anything about what was discovered unless there was an indictment, which of course can’t happen.
I’m becoming a broken record. But the members shouldn’t be handling the questioning in five minute rounds. They’re not coordinated in any real way. Some make good points, others are a waste of time. But after five minutes, that line of questioning is dropped and you’re on to something else. It’s a waste.
9:12 PM: Rep. Ratcliffe’s questioning struck me as very weak. It’s deep into the real distinctions between a conventional DOJ investigation and this special counsel investigation. But in practice, it’s yelling at Mueller for writing a report at all, or at least the entirety of volume 2.
9:18 PM: Seems the key theme for the Republicans so far is that being mad that Mueller wrote the obstruction portion of the Report. In Sensenbrenner’s case, he’s moving right ahead to arguing that since the President can’t be indicted he shouldn’t even be investigated.
9:24 PM: We’re seeing with Rep. Cohen (D-TN) the problems with having committee members do the questioning: no consistency or follow up.
9:28 PM: Again, Cohen’s questioning accomplished nothing. The obvious thing to do now would be to follow up on these impeachment questioning from the Republicans: did Mueller see it as within his purview to opine on what was impeachable?
Check out our Prime staff blog, with running commentary on this morning’s testimony.
Robert Mueller is attempting to draw some lines around his committee testimony to exclude the “investigate the investigators” nonsense. In his opening statement he said he won’t address questions about the origins of the FBI’s Russia investigation or the Steele dossier.
Mueller also tried to fence off any of the procedural disputes surrounding his report or his testimony, saying he won’t address the actions taken by the attorney general or by Congress.
As I wrote yesterday, I’m expecting more surprises in the Republican questioning than in the questions from the Democrats. We shall see.
8:50 AM: Only real news so far. We didn’t address collusion. And Mueller will abide by the restrictions outlined in the DOJ letter from earlier this week.