The Daily Beast story is Team Trump Now Wants Mueller to Testify Before Congress in Hopes of a Grilling. It is subtitled “The president has said he doesn’t want the special counsel to talk on the Hill. But after Mueller’s statement Wednesday, Trump’s team is itching for it.”
As we all know the erratic president saying one thing one day and the opposite the next is par for the course (pun intended as he lives like he golfs, by cheating) — hell, he says one thing one hour and reverses himself the next as he did in his tweets about Russia influencing the election. He could easily decide he wants Mueller to testify before Congress if Sean Hannity convinces him this is a good idea.
According to The Daily Beast:
“If you are wondering whether or not Mueller is open to transparency [and] accountability in this deeply flawed investigation, think again,” Hannity said. “Oh, Bob Mueller does not want to answer questions [from] Jim Jordan, Mark Meadows, Matt Gaetz, and other Republicans.”
If Congressional Republicans are taking their orders from Donald Trump I think another thing that may push him to tell Mitch McConnell to have Judiciary Chair Lindsay Graham subpoena Mueller is that the fact that Mueller has said he doesn’t want to testify. Since Mueller is the Devil incarnate to Trump, forcing him to do the opposite of what he wants to do seems to be something Trump will relish.
Whether Mueller ends up testifying in the House, which is quite possible, or the Senate where the odds are getting better considering the news reported in the Daily Beast article, I think the Republicans advocating for this will get something they didn’t bargain for.
Just like in the Justice Department investigation of the investigators, they will find bupkis. This is Yiddish slang and is a word I heard many times growing up to meaning “nothing.”. Only as an adult did I discover it meant goat or sheep droppings in Yiddish.
In fact, I think what would end up happening if Mueller did testify not only would the Republicans find nothing untoward in the Mueller investigation but they would get things they didn’t bargain for.
They would give Mueller a platform to explain the findings of his investigation to viewers of Fox News like the now famous but nameless Republican woman in Justin Amash’s town hall who thought the report exonerated the president. In addition Democrats would be able to open avenues of questioning about significant matters of wrongdoing that they didn’t investigate because it wasn’t part of their directive.
UPDATES:
Bill Barr is now staying Mueller should have indicated in the report whether or not he found Trump broke the law. Now is the chance for Democrats to ask the question of him directly.
Also:
The Democrats could, and I think would, drill down into all the unanswered questions elaborated on in this VOX article.
In particular:
In the end, Mueller’s decision not to make a criminal finding one way or the other may be the most crucial decision he made during his investigation — and we should really get more transparency about it.
When did the special counsel decide on this approach, exactly? What was the debate over it like? How close was he to going in a different direction? What sort of internal analyses were written on this topic? Was his decision based on the particular circumstances of this case, or would his reasoning apply to all similar investigations? Should the new standard be that the Justice Department never opines on whether the president has violated the law?
It’s understandable that Mueller doesn’t want to testify before Congress about uncharged individuals and uncharged conduct, as per Justice Department practice. But this is a process call that could have major consequences for future investigations of presidents, and accordingly deserves a good deal more review and debate.
Considering how consequential this decision may have been, the few paragraphs about this in Mueller’s report simply aren’t enough — nor are his brief remarks this week. His decision poses the risk that future investigations of presidents will be hamstrung from the start. So he should give a better explanation of why he made this call.
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Read an essay about the derivation of the word bupkis here: A Hill of Bupkis.