Today, Explained - Mueller reports

Episode Date: July 24, 2019

At long last, former special counsel Robert Mueller testified before Congress today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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You can download Stitcher for free right now in the App Store, the Play Store, or visit stitcherapp.com slash today to learn more. Andrew Prokop, senior politics correspondent, Vox, former special counsel Robert Mueller testified today before Congress. How did things get started? So Chairman Jerry Nadler of the House Judiciary Committee started off by focusing on the big picture. Director Mueller, the president has repeatedly claimed that your report found there was no obstruction and that it completely and totally exonerated him. But that is not what your report said, is it? Correct. That is not what the report said. You wrote, quote, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however,

we are unable to reach that judgment, close quote. Now, does that say there was no obstruction? Basically, Nadler wanted to make very clear that the report did not get Trump off the hook on obstruction of justice. This was a decision that Mueller made not to decide whether Trump committed criminal obstruction of justice because he is the sitting president. And according to the Justice Department, a sitting president cannot be indicted. So the way that Mueller dealt with this was that he would not come to any conclusion on whether or not Trump's conduct was criminal. So what was the Democrats' strategy here? They started with the big picture on obstruction, the big picture on Russian interference, and then they proceeded to discuss in more detail some of the episodes of potential obstruction that Mueller outlined in his report. For instance, Trump ordering Don McGahn, the White House counsel,

to fire Mueller himself. And how this basically played out is that Democrats essentially read passages of Mueller's report back to Mueller and said, is this accurate? And Mueller very briefly responded, basically, yes. Did the president refuse the request to be interviewed by you and your team? Yes. Yes. And is it true that you tried for more than a year to secure an interview with the president? Yes. And is it true that you and your team advised the president's lawyer that, quote, an interview with the president is vital to our investigation? Yes. Yes. Was this what the Democrats beckoning Mueller to come testify was all for, just so they could read him his own report and have him go, yes, that's what it says? Well, the Democrats were in kind of a tough spot because Mueller had made clear in advance that his testimony was going to stick very closely to the report and would not go beyond it. So no,

I wouldn't say it was a particularly effective strategy at making this pop for members of the public who may not have been so closely following it. Did the Republicans have a cohesive strategy? So Republicans were attacking using all sorts of arguments that Trump and conservative media and Trump's strongest defenders in Congress have been saying for some time, efforts to discredit the origins of the investigation, efforts to call into question the impartiality of Mueller's team members, efforts to question his decision making around obstruction of justice and so on, just basically attack after attack after attack. And if somebody knows they did not conspire with anybody from Russia to affect the election

and they see the big Justice Department with people that hate that person coming after him. And he knows he's innocent. What he's doing is not obstructing justice. He is pursuing justice. And the fact that you ran it out two years means you perpetuated injustice. I take your question. The gentleman's time has expired. The witness may answer the question.

Mueller's strategy here was that essentially he just didn't engage. I take your question. But there were a few moments where Mueller objected to the way Republicans were characterizing his investigation and his team. And you must be aware by now that six of your lawyers donated $12,000 directly to Hillary Clinton. I'm not even talking about the $49,000 they donated

to other Democrats, just the donations to the opponent who was the target of your investigation. Can I speak for a second to the hiring practices? I've been in this business for almost 25 years.

And in those 25 years, I have not had occasion once to ask somebody about their political affiliation. It is not done. What I care about is the capability of the individual to do the job and do the job quickly and seriously and with integrity. The Republicans brought up several elements of the investigation they thought were not as thoroughly investigated. Was that strategy effective? Did they maybe introduce to people who weren't aware of these perceived holes in the investigation? I think the real strategy was to create clips of Republican congressmen attacking Mueller and advancing these arguments that could then be played back on Fox News all day.

You hired a bunch of people that did not like the president. On the week of June 9, who did Russian lawyer Veselnitskaya meet with more frequently, the Trump campaign or Glenn Simpson, who was functionally acting as an operative for the Democratic National Committee? You charge Rick Gates for false statements. You charge Paul Manafort for false statements. You charge Michael Cohen with false statements. You charge Michael Flynn, a three-star general, with false statements. But the guy who puts the country through this whole saga, he lies, and you guys don't charge him. And I'm curious as to why. Well, I can't get into it, and it's obvious, I think, that we can't get into charging decisions. I don't know if it's really designed to convince, you know, swing voters or undecided voters.

But, you know, it's aggressive attack and pushback. And, you know, they were making this pushback. And Mueller was essentially just not responding and letting their points, for the most part, stand. There were some interesting moments because we've heard so little from Mueller during this whole process where he would smirk at times or he would kind of almost roll his eyes and he seemed a little exasperated by the whole affair at times as well. Did we learn anything new today or was Mueller right to sort of say, you know, everything's in the report, just read the report? Well, Mueller did not want to even come to this hearing. He did not want to testify. He said in May, in his only public statement before this, that... I hope and expect this to be the only time that I will speak to you in this manner. There has been discussion about

an appearance before Congress. Any testimony from this office would not go beyond our report. I think he was being extremely, extremely cautious before even confirming that something was in the report. He would often ask for what page it was on so he could double check. And he really did not want to go out on any limbs. Some people have argued that he came off as kind of shaky. This is not the same Robert Mueller that we saw in his 88 appearances before Congress in the past. And I think it's fair to say that, you know,

the years have clearly taken a toll on the Bob Mueller we used to see. Trying so hard to be cautious that he didn't come off as particularly authoritative. Did his testimony today ultimately change anything? I don't think so. I think Democrats, you know, they have been telling themselves that the report was very long. And though they believe its findings to be damning, they don't think that it was effectively communicated to the American public. And they had hoped that these hearings with the spectacle of Mueller's testimony would be a way to change that, to get these facts of what Trump did, which they think is quite outrageous, in front of more people and to get more people angry about it.

And I don't think that's really what happened today. I think that things pretty quickly devolved into the traditional partisan camps and the people who already believed the facts looked damning will continue to believe that. But the key in doing anything about it in Congress impeachment, Democrats have said, is to try to win over Republicans. The Republicans were standing wholly behind Trump, acting even as his defense attorneys in a way, and it didn't really seem like anything changed. It didn't deliver a moment

that could turbocharge the impeachment effort or something like that. Did the impeachment question kind of die out there in Congress today, or can Democrats still make the case? That's after the break on Today Explained. explained. Kaina Az Zamaria. Sean. Welcome back from your honeymoon?

Yeah, thank you. Where did you go? We went to Portugal, Spain, and Paris. Oh my gosh. Yeah. You know, Portugal's always been one of my dreams. It was gorgeous. It should be a dream.

Was it amazing? Did you eat, like, little fishies? Octopuses. Oh my gosh. A little olive oil and parsley. So you ate well. Yes, we ate very well. Did you have to brush your teeth? That's a tough pivot, isn't it? Yeah, we brushed our teeth. We both have quips. Amazing. You have like his and hers?

Yes, we do. That you got at getquip.com slash explained? That is accurate. Where they start at $25 and your first set of refills is free? Yes. One is silver, one is gold. Beautiful. Did anyone comment on how fresh your teeth looked? No, but everyone commented on how happy we looked and what big smiles we had. So there it is.

I look forward to all of that one day. Southern Portugal with the person I love and good food. And quip. And oh, clean teeth. And clean teeth. One day I'll have clean teeth, kind of. I wish that for everyone. All right.

Thanks so much. My pleasure. Getquip.com slash explained, y'all. Andrew, obviously the president is still in office and there's still a question of impeachment, which seems to come up every now and then. There's a lot of disagreement, obviously, within the Democratic Party on impeachment. Where does the party currently stand on impeachment?

So a little over a third and less than half of the House Democratic Caucus now supports beginning an impeachment inquiry. And we should clarify that this is supporting an impeachment inquiry, which is not necessarily the same thing as saying they would vote for impeaching Trump. And is this impeachment based on the findings of the Mueller report or something else? The House of Representatives can impeach on whatever it wants to. And different Democrats and now one former Republican, Justin Amash, have different reasons

for wanting an impeachment inquiry. A lot of people are basing it on Mueller's findings, particularly the obstruction of justice pattern outlined about President Trump, his efforts to impede the Russia investigation. But there are other reasons, too.

Some people have simply cited Trump's bigotry. Representative Al Green of Texas, a Democrat, has been saying since 2017 that Trump should be impeached for his record of inciting white supremacy, sexism, bigotry, hatred, xenophobia, race baiting, and racism. And Green actually revived this conversation by using a procedural tactic to force the House of Representatives to vote on an impeachment measure last week. It was the first impeachment vote since Democrats took back control this year. It failed. More than half of House Democrats joined all Republicans to table the idea.

332 votes to 95. And that was basically a vote to dispense with Green's impeachment effort and to shelve it. So who supports impeachment in particular? Pretty much the liberals and further left members of the Democratic caucus and its presidential candidates. But, you know, it's a few dozen members at this point. And who opposes it? Probably Speaker Nancy Pelosi is the most prominent and important opponent of impeachment. She has been saying all year that this would be

a mistake for Democrats to push forward on this, both a political mistake and just simply a practical mistake. If you really believe the president may have committed crimes in office, isn't it your obligation to mount an impeachment inquiry? My obligation is to do whatever we do in the most effective way possible. And you believe he committed crimes in office? Yeah. I think the Mueller report very clearly spells out at least 10 or 11 instances of obstruction of justice.

And I believe in the committee system and it will bubble up from there. The way impeachment works, the House of Representatives can vote to impeach Trump with a simple majority. So theoretically, they only need Democratic votes to impeach Trump. But that doesn't remove him from office. After that, the measure proceeds to the Senate, which will hold a trial. And it's a really high bar in the Senate to convict and remove Trump from office. It takes two-thirds of senators. And with Republicans still in control of the Senate, that's just incredibly unlikely to happen.

And we should just add that the polling on impeachment does not show it as being a slam dunk either. Like this would be a controversial move for Democrats to make. So is that to say that the divide on impeachment isn't really about the facts of the Mueller report or anything else the president has done in his two years in office? It is just about strategy for the Democrats in 2020 potentially? Well, some people think that's what the divide is, but other people just argue that, you know, the facts of Trump's behavior, whether it's about the Mueller report or his general conduct as president, are bad enough that he just simply deserves to be

impeached. And Al Green, for instance, who pushed the latest impeachment measure, said that we cannot allow political expediency to prevent us from going forward. Political expediency says let's defeat him at the next election as opposed to impeach him now. It's the moral imperative that Dr. King called to our attention that we must enforce. The moral imperative to do that which is right, and he said the time to do right is always right now. Was today kind of like the last hurrah of the Mueller report then? Is there anywhere to go after this? It may be. There are still a few loose ends, though, that remain to be resolved. Mueller refused to answer a bunch of questions on the Steele dossier that alleged a Trump-Russia

conspiracy that was put together by a British spy. There has been a inspector general review in the Justice Department about how exactly this dossier was used. And we're expecting a report on that sometime in the coming months that will have some new information here on just how the investigation got started. also Roger Stone, who was indicted for attempting to obstruct an official proceeding and other charges. And he is going to be facing a trial in November. And a lot of the facts about exactly what happened with Roger Stone and WikiLeaks and email hacking in 2016 were redacted from the Mueller report because of this trial. So Roger Stone's trial will really be something interesting to watch as we see whether we learn more to the story about what happened in 2016. Andrew Prokop will write a book about all this one day.

I'm Sean Ramos-Firm. This is Today Explained. Irene Noguchi is the show's executive producer. Bridget McCarthy, Noam Hassenfeld, Amina Alsadi, and Halima Shah make the show. Afim Shapiro is our engineer. Alex Pena and Will Reed are our interns. And the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder is totally unknowable. Today Explained is produced in association with Stitcher. We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Thank you.