Don’t this sound like an innocent man?
Just got back only to hear of a last minute change allowing a Never Trumper attorney to help Robert Mueller with his testimony before Congress tomorrow. What a disgrace to our system. Never heard of this before. VERY UNFAIR, SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED. A rigged Witch Hunt!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 23, 2019
Does it sound like a man who has been totally exonerated by Robert Mueller?
It seems like much ado about nothing. The “Never Trumper” in question is Mueller’s longtime assistant, Aaron Zebley.
Robert S. Mueller III’s longtime right-hand aide will appear beside him at the witness table during a hearing on Wednesday with the House Judiciary Committee to assist as needed as the former special counsel answers questions about his investigation, people familiar with the hearing said.
Mr. Zebley will probably also appear by Mueller’s side when he testifies separately to the House Intelligence Committee, although those negotiation are ongoing or at least have not yet been announced. Mueller apparently made the unusual request that Zebley be sworn in, presumably so he could pawn off some of the detailed answers to him. The committees balked at that arrangement and therefore Zebley will take the more traditional role of a non-sworn participant. Mueller will be able to consult with him to make sure he answers questions accurately, but he will have to give the testimony on his own.
It’s amazing that Trump considers this unusual, let alone some kind of disgrace.
It is not uncommon for government witnesses to bring aides along to congressional hearings for that purpose, though in almost all cases, the aides sit behind, rather than next to, the witness. Mr. Mueller is being asked to account for two years’ worth of investigative details uncovered by a large team of investigators and to do so while avoiding the disclosure of nonpublic information.
Trump calls this “a rigged Witch Hunt,” which is, again, inconsistent with his contention that these gentlemen have absolved him of any criminal or nefarious activities. As for Mr. Zebley being a “Never Trumper,” that term is normally reserved for Republicans who couldn’t support the party if it nominated Trump. Zebley has no known political affiliation:
The president frequently attacked members of Mr. Mueller’s team during his investigation for their political affiliations or prior statements. But Mr. Zebley was not one of those targets. He has no known party affiliation, and according to a Washington Post review, has not donated to candidates from either party.
Trump insists Zebley should not be allowed to help Mueller in his testimony even though Mueller’s spokesperson Jim Popkin described Zebley as the “deputy special counsel” and said he “had day-to-day oversight of the investigations conducted by the office.”
Despite all this sturm und drang, I don’t expect much to come from Mueller’s testimony on Wednesday. Unless he’s willing to say that the president is a traitor who should be removed from office, I think the president will weather the day without seeing the dynamic change much. I get no sense that Mueller will stick his neck out at all in any way. I hope I’m wrong.
Ask him, please, did anyone shut down, hurry or end your investigation before you were otherwise finished?
Just watched a few minutes of the hearing. Trump has nothing to worry about. Mueller isn’t going after Trump, and in some cases he doesn’t even seem to be keeping up with the questions or to know everything in his report. The 5-minute-per-member format makes it impossible to create any sustained narrative.
Mueller could have taken Trump down, but he didn’t, and he’s not going to do so in this hearing. Frankly, I think it might turn out that he is too old and tired to do so.
I wouldn’t accuse him of being too old. He is not going to go after Trump that is certain. His job was to present the evidence. Maybe someone else would go about it differently but not this guy. Just the facts man, just the facts right here in the report.
When one of the two parties is operating in complete bad faith with the stated goal of muddying the waters and ensuring that half of the available time is wasted on distraction and obfuscation, then of course nothing could come of Mueller’s testimony. That Der Trumper and his National Trumpalists don’t want access to Zebley, one of the major participants in the investigation, is just another sign of their abject bad faith and disinterest in what Trumper pulled.
The irritation factor for a responsible citizen is so high that it becomes painful to watch the spectacle, which of course is the goal of the National Trumpalists. It will be interesting to see if Mueller plays their game or simply says “that’s irrelevant” or “I answered that already”.
Basically, we are at the point that government cannot operate in America until it has been de-Conservatized, just as German government had to be de-Nazified after WWII. But that is quite beyond acceptable rhetoric, no matter how true.
It does seem you are right. He is not going to stick his neck out, it may be a good idea since once he does get involved in a debate they would jump all over things like the dossier and Hillary funding it. They already tried but he shut it down pretty effectively.
In the end no one questioned the OLC opinion that you can’t indict a sitting president. Previously, Mueller said it would “be unconstitutional.” It’s been 30 years since I took Constitutional Law, but this strikes me as an overstatement, and again, just his opinion. The final arbiter of what is constitutional in our system is the Supreme Court, not the DOJ. However, given that the DOJ won’t change its opinion, who has standing to challenge it? Mueller could have decided the validity of this memo by indicting Trump, having him fight in the courts, then we would know for sure whether a sitting president can be indicted.
After several hours of testimony, I think the answer is “yes”.
That doesn’t mean Trump is a goner, or that Mueller was fantastic, or that there were any “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington” or “West Wing” type turning points.
But it does mean that seeing and hearing is different than reading; and that Mueller had a few damning statements/answers, and the Democrats (overall) executed a pretty good strategy in solid fashion. They moved the story forward. (We’ll see what happens with the leaders’ upcoming press conference.)
Following Jacob Riis’ “Stonecutter’s Credo”*, today represented one solid blow on a seemingly unmovable rock. Now the challenge is to come back tomorrow (and next week, and next month, and next year) and keep pounding away.
*”When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.”
Just starting to get a feel for how Mueller’s testimony was perceived outside the US – this from The Guardian (a generally center-left publication):