The Department of Justice warned Robert Mueller to limit his testimony to the contents of his public report when he testifies before Congress on Wednesday.
“Any testimony must remain within the boundaries of your public report because matters within the scope of your investigation were covered by executive privilege, including information protected by law enforcement, deliberative process, attorney work product, and presidential communications privileges,” Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer advised Mueller.
For Democrats, Mueller’s testimony will be their only — and probably last — chance to drive home the narrative that Mueller uncovered wrongdoing by Trump worthy of impeachment. Given the DOJ’s directive, Mueller may be prevented from delivering the political reality TV that Democrats are hoping to get out of his testimony.
Mueller ordered to limit testimony to report
The DOJ letter was a response to an inquiry from Mueller himself, who on July 10 sought guidance on his testimony “concerning privilege or other legal bars” involving his testimony. Weinsheimer advised Mueller not to comment on grand jury material or ongoing investigations and stick to his promise in May not to go “beyond” what the report says.
After noting that the “Department already has taken the extraordinary steps to make almost your entire report, as well as a substantial volume of your underlying investigative material, available to the committees,” the DOJ advised Mueller that “should you testify, the Department understands that testimony regarding the work of the Special Counsel’s Office will be governed by the terms you outlined on May 29 — specifically, that the information you discuss during your testimony appears in, and does ‘not go beyond,’ the public version of your March 22, 2019 report to the Attorney General or your May 29 public statement.”
Mueller, who is a reluctant witness, will testify for about five hours in back-to-back hearings before the House Intelligence and Judiciary panels on Wednesday. If Mueller’s May press conference was a pointless re-hashing of the Mueller report, then it’s hard to imagine what several hours more of testimony will accomplish. Rather than bring out new information, Democrats are hoping that Mueller’s testimony will put a sensational spin on the contents of his rather dry, plodding 400-page text.
For the Democrats who were waiting for Mueller to deliver the “smoking gun,” Mueller’s insistence that “the report is my testimony” wasn’t good enough. They want the American people to hear from Mueller that President Trump violated the law, and, were he not the president, would be indicted for obstruction of justice.
Will Mueller deliver for Dems?
Democrats have ridden roughshod over any efforts by the DOJ and the White House to protect redacted information in the report, like grand jury information about people who were investigated but never charged. Democrat Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), the chairman of the Judiciary panel and a hysterical collusion truther, again accused the Justice Department of a “cover up” by trying to muzzle Mueller with the “incredibly arrogant” letter. But Weinsheimmer advised Mueller that he is still bound by the DOJ’s directive since he is commenting on his work there, even though he left the department in May.
If Mueller is forced to comment only on what is contained in his report, then watchers can probably expect a partisan re-hashing of a one-sided report. Even if Mueller sticks to the report, he will be re-capitulating political innuendo of wrongdoing laid out through its more than 400 pages.
The White House and DOJ will not have lawyers in the room, so what Mueller chooses to say falls to him. Wary Republicans wouldn’t be wrong to expect a partisan hack-job, though. Many were troubled by Mueller’s bizarre decision to refuse to clear the president of obstruction of justice, despite not charging the president with the crime.
Republicans jilted?
Meanwhile, Republicans want to ask Mueller about the circumstances of the investigation’s origins, but they may find themselves limited. This would be by design: while Mueller’s report describes his investigation of collusion — that he did not find — in excruciating detail, there is little about the dubious basis of the probe itself, which Republicans have argued relied heavily on salacious, politicized evidence found in the infamous Christopher Steele dossier.
While the Democrats hope that Mueller’s testimony will provide enough momentum to move forward with impeachment, it’s not at all clear that they will succeed. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has consistently blocked impeachment, and past efforts to gin up anti-Trump fervor with televised hearings, like when Democrats hauled Michael Cohen to the witness stand, proved ephemeral.
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