Tag: Robert Mueller

Justice Dept. Tells Mueller Deputies Not to Testify, Scrambling an Agreement

New York Times logoWASHINGTON — The Justice Department is seeking to discourage Robert S. Mueller III’s deputies from testifying before Congress, potentially jeopardizing an agreement for two of the former prosecutors to answer lawmakers’ questions in private next week, according to two government officials familiar with the matter.

The department told the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees last week that it was opposed to the testimony and had communicated its view to the two former members of Mr. Mueller’s team, Aaron Zebley and James L. Quarles III, according to a senior congressional official familiar with the discussions. A Justice Department official confirmed that account and said that the department had instructed both men not to appear.

It is unclear what effect the Justice Department’s intervention will have on the men’s eventual appearances, but it raises the prospect that a deal lawmakers thought they had struck last month for testimony from Mr. Mueller, the former special counsel, and the two prosecutors could still unravel.

View the complete July 9 article by Nicholas Fandos and Katie Benner on The New York Times website here.

In Sudden Shift, Barr Urges Mueller To Defy Congressional Subpoena

When asked in April whether he was opposed to the special counsel testifying before Congress — an event now scheduled for July 17 — Attorney General Bill Barr clearly told lawmakers, “I have no objection to Bob Mueller personally testifying.”

But now he has changed his tune.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Barr said Democrats were trying to make a “public spectacle” by subpoenaing Mueller to testify about the Russia investigation.

View the complete July 8 article by Cody Fenwick with AlterNet on the National Memo website here.

Trump plans rally in Greenville, NC, on day Mueller is set to testify

President Donald Trump will hold a rally in Greenville, NC, on July 17, according to his campaign website.

The rally at Williams Arena is the same day former special counsel Robert Mueller is set to testify before Congress on his investigation into the Trump campaign, The Hill reported. Mueller will “publicly testify before the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees,” according to the Associated Press.

The Keep America Great rally is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. Only two tickets per person are available for those registering to attend the Greenville rally, according to the website.

View the complete July 2 article by Noah Feit on The Charlotte Observer here.

Weeks of Talks Led a Reluctant Mueller to Testify

New York Times logoWASHINGTON — The agreement for Robert S. Mueller III to testify on Capitol Hill materialized after weeks of phone calls and meetings between House Democratic staff and associates of Mr. Mueller, who made clear his reluctance to enter the political war surrounding his investigation.

His intermediaries repeatedly delivered a message that Mr. Mueller, then the special counsel, conveyed last month in a rare public appearance: A prosecutor speaks through his indictments and the written word rather than the public spectacle of a congressional hearing. Mr. Mueller was so averse to being pulled into the political arena that he never spoke directly with lawmakers or their aides, according to a senior congressional official involved in the talks and others briefed on them.

His reticence mattered little in the end. Democrats were insistent that he had a responsibility to testify, though they agreed to combine questioning from two panels on one day. The protracted negotiations came to an abrupt stop late on Tuesday night when representatives for Mr. Mueller agreed that he would show up if the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees issued subpoenas for an appearance on July 17.

View the complete June 26 article by Nicholas Fandos and Eileen Sullivan on The Washington Post website here.

Robert Mueller agrees to publicly testify to Congress

Axios logoFormer special counsel Robert Mueller has agreed to testify publicly before the House Intelligence and Judiciary committees pursuant to a subpoena on July 17, Chairmen Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) announced Tuesday evening. The testimonies will be “back to back,” but separate, according to Schiff.

Why it matters: Mueller previously said he preferred not to testify and that his 400-page report would function as his testimony. After weeks of negotiations between the former special counsel’s team and House Democrats, a subpoena is what ultimately broke the deadlock.

“Pursuant to subpoenas issued by the House Judiciary and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence tonight, Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III has agreed to testify before both Committees on July 17 in open session.

View the complete June 25 article by Rebecca Falconer and Zachaery Basu on the Axios website here.

Trump biographer on why Mueller didn’t indict: The president was ready to ‘blow up everything’

It is not an easy task to discern the truth when confronting a president and his allies who have created their own reality, one in which truth and lies have no absolute meaning and are, for them, ultimately interchangeable.

Donald Trump does this on a personal level: he has lied at least 10,000 times while president.

During his recent interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, Donald Trump continued to lie in public, asserting that he did not try to fire special sounsel Robert Mueller. As multiple sources and witnesses agree, this is not true. Trump also asserted that he can do anything that he wants, according to the Constitution: He apparently believes he is a king or emperor. This too is a lie. The Constitution grants the president no such powers, and was drafted by the framers to stop demagogues and would-be tyrants such as Donald Trump.

View the complete June 18 article by Chauncey DeVega from Salon on the AlterNet website here.

Here are 4 ways the Republicans’ star witness actually just undermined Trump’s bogus talking points about the Russia investigation

Andrew McCarthy has been an aggressive defender of President Donald Trump against the charges brought up by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation on Fox News and elsewhere. In fact, the former federal prosecutor has been such a fierce advocate for Trump and a purveyor of the right wing’s talking points that Republicans called him before the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday to testify.

But before the committee and under penalty of perjury, McCarthy actually contradicted several of the GOP’s favorite talking points about the FBI investigation of the Trump campaign, as both John Amato and Kyle Cheney pointed out.

1. He said no one who approved the Carter Page FISA application — which has been the source of outrage on the right — was acting bad faith.

One of the biggest sources of trumped-up outrage in right-wing media about the Russia investigation has been the surveillance of one-time Trump aide Carter Page, who was actually only surveilled after he left the campaign. (The Mueller report indicates Page has been targeted as a Russian intelligence asset in the past, though he wasn’t charged with any wrongdoing.) This one choice by investigators has been used to suggest that the FBI was on a politically motivated crusade targeting the Trump campaign — possibly in a conspiracy that went up to President Barack Obama.

View the complete June 13 article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet website here.

Key House panel faces pivotal week on Trump

The House Judiciary Committee, which would consider articles of impeachment against President Trump if that process moves forward, is set for a pivotal week.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), the panel’s chairman, has jostled for weeks with the administration to secure more documents and witness testimony — including that of special counsel Robert Mueller — to guide probes into Russian election interference and allegations that Trump obstructed Mueller’s investigation.

But the efforts have come up largely empty in the face of the administration’s near-blanket refusal to honor those requests, leading to confrontations about holding administration officials for contempt and raising the pressure on Democratic leaders to consider impeachment.

View the complete June 3 article by Mike Lillis and Scott Wong on The Hill website here.

Former federal prosecutor: Here’s the giant hole in the Mueller report — and why it means the special counsel must testify

In his May 29 televised statement, special counsel Robert Mueller told us that everything he had to say was contained in his written report, and that it contained everything that Congress and the public needed to know about his investigation. This, however, is incorrect in several material respects, and the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees should insist that he appear before them to answer extremely urgent questions.

The Mueller report is completely silent on the results of the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation that was opened up shortly after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey on May 9, 2017. The next day, Trump then confided to Russia’s foreign minister and ambassador to the U.S. the following day in the Oval Office that — referring to the FBI’s Russia investigation — the firing of “nut job” Comey had relieved “great pressure” on him. Trump then followed this confirmation by admitting to NBC’s Lester Holt in a televised interview at the White House that he had decided to fire Comey because of the “Russia thing.” Continue reading “Former federal prosecutor: Here’s the giant hole in the Mueller report — and why it means the special counsel must testify”

Barr Escalates Criticism of Mueller Team and Defends Trump

WASHINGTON — Attorney General William P. Barr ratcheted up his criticisms of the special counsel’s office and defended President Trump’s actions in a wide-ranging interview broadcast on Friday.

Mr. Barr distanced the Justice Department from the report on Mr. Trump’s attempts to interfere in the Russia investigation written by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. Mr. Barr also said he could have skipped writing his controversial summary of the special counsel’s work if investigators had done more to prepare the report for public consumption.

And in an interview with CBS News from Alaska, where he had visited law enforcement officials, Mr. Barr also blamed his decision to release a four-page letter in March summarizing the report’s main conclusions, rather than releasing the report in its entirety, on the special counsel’s office.

View the complete May 31 article by Katie Benner on The New York Times website here.