Spotlight on Mueller During Congressional Testimony

but the date has been set. On July seventeen, Special Counsel Robert Mueller will testify in public before the House Judiciary Committee and in a closed session before the House Intelligence Committee, setting up one of the most dramatic hearings of the Trump presidency. Joining me as former federal prosecutor Ellie Honick, special counsel at Loewenstein Sandler, Ellie, how important is Mueller's testimony? Can it live up to all the hype? Well,

it depends who you ask and who's doing the hyping. Um. I do think Mueller's testimony is going to be hugely important here. First of all, the vast majority of the American poll book has certainly not read the Muller Report, and I think doesn't even fully understand or know what's in there. And I think that applies to some members of Congress as well. Based on the public comments that

we've seen. So even if Muller just all he does is get in front of Congress and read sections of his report, I think that will have a major impact. But I also think he's got serious questions to answer beyond the four corners of his report. Let's talk about some of those serious questions. What do you think he will answer and what may he evade. So it's interesting because when Mueller made his public statement a few weeks ago, he said, I don't want to testify him. My report

is my testimony. And I know there's this mystique that's sort of grown around Robert Muller. He's a very deeply respected prosecutor and public official for good reason. But but guess what. You don't get to just pick and choose what you answer in response to a subpoena. You don't get to just say, here's my report. That's all I'm saying. You have to answer questions. Now, there are some legitimate exceptions.

I think it's perfectly legitimate for him to say that relates to an ongoing criminal investigation that relates to a sensitive national security issue. Those I think are fine, But just saying i'd rather not is not a legitimate basis to decline to answer. So look, I think the Congress is I think the House is going to be asking Mueller about some of the questions that he avoided. Would you have charged the president if he was not the president?

Did you find enough evidence the charge obstruction if the president was anybody other than the sitting president. That's a hugely important question. I think he'll try to get around that, but but I think it's a it's a very fair question that needs to be asked now. As you know, Trump and his team have raised claims of executive privilege and something they call absolute immunity. Could they have a Justice Department lawyers sitting there objecting to some of the questions.

Theoretically they could, and it will be interesting to see how they play that. I don't think that they will have a White House or d J lawyer sitting there because it looks so bad. And if you if think just to last week when Hope Pix got to testify behind closed doors, there was there were administration lawyers who objected about a hundred fifty five times. I think somebody counted it up and effectively shut down her testimony easier done behind closed doors, much more difficult to do in

front of the cameras when the whole nation's watching. It looks obstructionists. Now, I think there's other ways the White House may try to throw itself in front of this. They may send a letter, They may try to go to court and stop Mueller from testifying. But I don't think they have any sort of legitimate legal basis to do it. But they may figure, hey, why not let's give it a shot. Any anything we can do to get a chance to derail this they might take a

shot at. Now, the Republicans have already said that they're going to cross examine Mueller about his alleged conflicts of interest, and you can imagine the texts between Struck and Page how will how will he do on across examination kind of question? Well, so I think we're gonna see very

much of a ping pong match here. We're going to see the Democrats wanting to focus on Russian interference, the Pain's involvement, and obstruction of justice, and then we're gonna want to see the Republicans, I think, focusing on the things that you just talked about. Look, I think Mueller's the only goal that Mueller should have and what I used to tell witnesses all the time when I was a prosecutor's just tell the truth. It's just just fact.

It's the easiest thing in the world. And I think some of those lines of Republican questioning may bear a little bit of fruit, and some I think will fall flat. I think any suggestion that Mueller's impossibly conflicted and has a grudge against the president because of unpaid greens fees or something at one of the president's country clubs will

be ridiculous and will look ridiculous. I think on the struct text, I imagine that mother will say these texts were inappropriate, and Peter Struck was removed from the case and he's been disciplined, and that had no impact on any of the work we did. So um, I do think that Republicans will try to score points that I don't think there's really too much to be gained now.

Because of the mystique that you said that Robert Mueller has, is it likely that he can avoid they can avoid the circus like atmosphere that he may fear will happen when the Republicans start asking some of these questions. I don't think he's gonna be able to prevent Congress from becoming a circus like atmosphere. Um. I think he's probably better positioned than your average witness to to sort of

stand toe to toe with these representatives. I think your average witness is probably quite intimidated to sit in the well of that U. S. House of Representatives. But Robert Mueller has testified in Congress dozens of times in his career. He's a veteran at this, He's a military veteran as well, So I don't think any of this will intimidate him in the least. And I do think he'll be able to sort of hold his own and maintain more control

than your average witness would. He's also testified to cross examination like questions to some of the very Republicans that are on the committee, so he has a little bit of experience there now. Um. You know, we often talk about how the Watergate hearings seem to shift public sentiment in favor of impeachment of Nixon. Does Muller's testimony have

the same potential or not? Quite sure? I think it's well yes and no. I think of all the witnesses that that we've have been bandied about as as possibly testifying. I think Mueller has the greatest potential to really change things. And we've seen the slow incremental increase in the number of members of Congress who are earned favor of an impeachment inquiry, and we've seen slow upticks in public support for that position, but it's still not at a critical

mass yet. And I think seeing and hearing Robert Mueller testify um will be a real important visceral experience for the American people. It's one thing to read the Muller Report, It's one thing to hear uh to hear people talk about it, but it's quite another thing to hear from the person who actually made these pretty incredible findings of fact, pretty astonishing findings of fact. On the other hand, I don't think we're going to get any enormously new factual revelations.

For example, when John Deane testified, I don't think people knew that he was going to implicate himself and the President. I think that was all sort of brand new here. I think we know the broad outlines of what Mueller found. It's a it's a question of adding some color and some detail to it and really deciphering Mueller's sort of mysterious thought process and where he comes out legally. Just

about a minute here. What is the question that you would ask if you were on the committee, Well, the first question would be did you find enough evidence to charge obstruction of justice? If not for this person being the sitting president, I would want to know more about about the ways in which Bar misrepresented Mueller's findings. Remember Mueller sent that letter to Bar saying that that Barr

had misstated the substance, nature, and context of his findings. Well, what did you mean by that in what specific ways? I would also want to dig into the Russian contacts that Mueller saw with the campaign and does he believe criminal or not? Does he believe those contacts pose a threat to national secure party? He certainly has the expertise to answer that based on his time as FBI director. Thank you so much, Ellie, as always for your insight.

That's Ellie Honick for more Federal prosecutor and special counsel at Loewenstein Sandler. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple podcast, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg Dot com Slash Podcast. I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg