On Mueller's Upcoming House Testimony

The impact of the upcoming testimony by Robert Mueller to the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees on July 17 depends on how intelligent and probing the questioning is by Democrats. Mueller has already said that he "would not provide information beyond what is already public in any appearance before Congress” in his public statement on May 29. Of course, the point is that very few have read the 448-page report, and the televised hearings will be the first time most Americans will be exposed to its findings.

Mueller should be asked to explain certain findings in a way that the general public can absorb. This is the golden opportunity for Dems to explore on camera what Mueller meant, for example, when he said that if grifting con man Donald "Not Exonerated" Trump had clearly not committed a crime, the report would have said so. One question could be if Trump were not protected by the DOJ opinion that sitting Presidents can't be indicted, would Mueller have indicted him (spoiler alert: yes).  Greg Sargent suggests more lines of questioning here.

Dems should avoid overselling Mueller's appearance, in the way they oversold Mueller as the savior in the Russiagate scandal. Mueller likely won't say much if anything beyond the report, but the value of the hearings is that television-dependent Americans will hear details in it for the first time. That can't be good for Trump, who's become even more unhinged at the prospect than usual.