Yum, yum. This will be fun:
wsj.com Robert Mueller to Testify in Open Session
Siobhan Hughes and Sadie Gurman
WASHINGTON—Robert Mueller will testify in open session next month before a pair of House committees, in a victory for the Democratic leaders who had long sought his testimony in public.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D., N.Y.) and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D., Calif.) said that the special counsel had agreed to testify in open session on July 17 pursuant to a subpoena.
The two chairmen had for weeks threatened to issue subpoenas to force Mr. Mueller to testify, but they didn’t serve such a subpoena until Tuesday. The special counsel’s public testimony is considered by Democrats to be crucial to their goal of educating the public about Russian interference in the 2016 elections and the information in the report on President Trump’s efforts to stifle the related federal investigation, with the goal of building public support for opening an impeachment inquiry.
“Americans have demanded to hear directly from the Special Counsel so they can understand what he and his team examined, uncovered, and determined about Russia’s attack on our democracy, the Trump campaign’s acceptance and use of that help, and President Trump and his associates’ obstruction of the investigation into that attack,” the lawmakers wrote in a statement.
A spokeswoman for the Justice Department declined to comment. Attorney General William Barr previously said he had no problem with Mr. Mueller testifying and wouldn’t stand in the way.
Jay Sekulow, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, said in a statement: “Bob Mueller has already stated that his report is his testimony. We now expect that his testimony on July 17 will be his report. In that report, he concluded that there was no collusion or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia.” We also expect that he will have to answer questions regarding some of the irregularities that took place during his investigation, not the least of which involve Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.”
The White House declined to comment.
At a surprise news conference last month, Mr. Mueller’s first public remarks about his nearly-two year investigation, he suggested that it was Congress’ job to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing. But he also said he didn’t want to testify publicly, saying the 448-page report speaks for itself. If he were to appear, his testimony wouldn’t veer beyond the confines of that document, he said at the time.
The report is my testimony,” Mr. Mueller said. “We will not comment on any other conclusions or hypotheticals about the president.”
Democrats head into Mr. Mueller’s appearance gambling that his live appearance could shift public sentiment, something that they have concluded didn’t result from a written report. Support for beginning impeachment hearings remains short of the level that would be needed to push House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) to drop her resistance to the idea. But some moderate Democrats are starting to worry about primary challenges from candidates on their left, and have begun adding their names to the list of those favoring beginning an impeachment inquiry.
Of the many questions Democrats hope to put to Mr. Mueller, none looms as large as his decision to avoid concluding whether or not Mr. Trump obstructed justice. Among other things, the report found substantial evidence that the president directed then-White House counsel Don McGahn to tell the deputy attorney general to have Mr. Mueller removed—a finding that Mr. Trump has contested.
Democrats also want to hear from Mr. Mueller about a letter in which he complained that Attorney General William Barr had mischaracterized the content, nature and substance of his report. Many Democrats blame the press conference that Mr. Barr held before releasing the report for shaping public opinion around the idea that Mr. Trump had been cleared of both collusion and obstruction. The report didn’t establish that the Trump campaign colluded with Russians, and didn’t determine whether Mr. Trump had engaged in obstruction of justice. Mr. Barr, along with his deputy, Rod Rosenstein, then concluded that the evidence wasn’t sufficient to conclude the president had engaged in such a crime.
Republicans said they hoped that Mr. Mueller’s appearance represented the end of Democrats’ probe into Russian interference.
“I hope the special counsel’s testimony marks an end to the political gamesmanship that Judiciary Democrats have pursued at great cost to taxpayers,” said Rep. Doug Collins (R., Ga.), the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee. “May this testimony bring to House Democrats the closure that the rest of America has enjoyed for months, and may it enable them to return to the business of legislating.”
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Robert Mueller: Charging President Trump ‘Was Not an Option’
In his first public statement since his 2017 appointment, special counsel Robert Mueller said charging Donald Trump “was not an option that we could consider” due to Justice Department policy that a president can’t be charged with a federal crime while in office. (Originally published May 29)
—Rebecca Ballhaus contributed to this article.
Write to Siobhan Hughes at siobhan.hughes@wsj.com and Sadie Gurman at sadie.gurman@wsj.com
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