I’m very curious what Bill Barr is up to with this letter to Robert Mueller insisting he not testify to anything beyond the four corners of the his report, and then only the unredacted points. You can see the letter here. This whole exercise has the Department of Justice acting like the White House Counsel’s Office. Indeed, in some respects it seems to have the DOJ operating more like the President’s own personal attorneys.
The letter begins by noting that Mueller has already said he doesn’t want to testify beyond what is contained in his report and then says it expects him to keep to that. Obviously, what he said was his preference has no binding power. There’s various stuff of that nature. But the letter really gets down to brass tacks in the penultimate paragraph where it says Mueller cannot testify to anything beyond what is stated in the report because the entire investigation is covered by executive privilege.
Ousted Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) is now a lobbyist. You’ll never guess who his first client is.
This is worth noting. President Trump: “I have Article Two where I have the right to do what I want as president but I don’t even talk about that because they did a report and there was no obstruction.”
Trump: "I have article two where I have the right to do what I want as president but I don't even talk about that because they did a report and there was no obstruction." pic.twitter.com/5yzVZOPFJ2
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) July 23, 2019
It does sound kind of funny to say you really liked an interview of yourself. But it’s really more a testament to the interviewer, someone who keeps you on track to tell a particular story, to dig into the interesting parts, not tarry in the culs de sac and dead ends. A few weeks ago I sat down with Brian McCullough of the Internet History Podcast to talk about TPM, how it came to be and its history over the last 20 years. (Yes, 20 years!) If you’re a fan of TPM or interested in its history I think you’ll enjoy this interview. Even if you’re not and just interested in the history of digital news and the economics of digital journalism I think you’ll find a lot to interest you too. Here it is in Episode 73 of The Josh Marshall Podcast.
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.
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.
Check out our Prime staff blog, with running commentary on this morning’s testimony.
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?
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.