Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the ranking Republican on the
House Intelligence Committee, says that he “expect[s] the worst” when former special
counsel Robert Mueller testifies before Congress next week. Speaking to Fox
News, the California congressman said that he expects Mueller to show up for
the testimony and hinted that what he tells Congress could be damaging to President
Trump.
“I really expect the worst, because Bob Mueller does not
have to show up,” Nunes said. “So, he's doing this on his own free will. That
tells me the last time he operated on his own free will, everybody forgets,
(Attorney General William) Barr came out with a memo, was very clear about the
decisions that he had made, and then a few days later, Mueller decided on his
own to go out and hold a nine-minute press conference.”
“So I am very concerned,” Nunes continued. “I think we
should expect the worst because he only has to say a couple [of] things and the
rest of the media -- not saying you here at Fox, but 90 percent of the media
will take one little phrase and run with it and try to run towards impeachment.”
“And look, I know there was no collusion and I know there
was no obstruction, so in that sense it was fine,” Nunes added. “However, there
shouldn't -- this whole investigation was an obstruction of justice trap.”
Nunes fails to point out that avoiding the “obstruction of
justice trap” was a simple matter. All the president had to do was not attempt
to obstruct the ongoing investigation. Per the testimony of Trump
Administration officials contained in the Mueller report, however, the
president did not meet this low bar.
Since the Mueller report was released last April following a
summary version by Barr in March, Republicans have claimed that Mueller found
no collusion and no obstruction. However, Nunes’ uneasiness with Mueller’s
testimony indicates that the claim is on shaky ground. Mueller’s
previous public statement in May seemed explicitly tailored to counter Republican
claims that the report had exonerated the president.
“If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not
commit a crime, we would have said so,” Mueller pointed out in both the written
report and his public statement. “We did not, however, make a determination as
to whether the president did commit a crime.”
Not making a determination is not the same thing as an
exoneration.
In his statement, Mueller went on to explain why his team
did not make a determination as to whether President Trump broke the law,
saying, “Under long-standing department policy, a president cannot be charged
with a federal crime while he is in office…. Even if the charge is kept under
seal and hidden from public view, that, too, is prohibited.”
“A special counsel’s office is part of the Department of
Justice, and by regulation, it was bound by that department policy,” Mueller
continued. “Charging the president with a crime was therefore not an option we
could consider.”
Mr. Mueller will testify in open session on July 24 before
the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees. His testimony was originally
scheduled for July 17 but was moved in order to
give members of both parties more time for questioning. It is also possible
that the change could have been due to the fact that President Trump had
scheduled a rally
in North Carolina for the same day, which could have distracted from
Mueller’s testimony.
At this point, no one knows what Mueller will say in his testimony,
but Republicans are obviously nervous that he will undercut their claims that
President Trump did not obstruct justice in his attempts to block the Russia
investigation. A question that is certain to be asked is whether Mueller would
have indicted Mr. Trump for his actions if he had not been president. If Mr.
Mueller answers directly, it could do more serious damage to President Trump’s
already shaky reputation.
Another likely line of questioning involves Mueller’s
letter to Barr contradicting his public characterization of the report. In
the private letter sent after the release of Barr’s summary but before his
decision to release a redacted version of the report, Mueller said that the public
summary “did not fully capture the context nature, and substance of this
Office’s work and conclusions” and that it had led to “public confusion about
critical aspects of the results of our investigation.”
The bottom line is that if, as President Trump and
Republicans have claimed for the past several months, that the president did
nothing wrong then there would be nothing to fear from Robert Mueller’s
testimony. The fact that Republicans “expect the worst” from the author of a
report that the GOP has claimed exonerates the president should make us wonder
how honest Republicans have been in their defenses of the Donald Trump.
Originally published on The
Resurgent
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