[ame="http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y67foeqaFLc&time_continue=4"]Graham: Mueller testifying will blow up in House Dems' faces - YouTube[/ame]
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Graham; Mueller Testifying Will Blow Up In House Dems Face.
- Thread starter pirate_girl
- Start date
July 17.
https://www.wsbtv.com/news/national...fy-before-2-house-panels-next-month/961488081
WASHINGTON (AP) - Former special counsel Robert Mueller has agreed to testify publicly before Congress on July 17 after Democrats issued subpoenas to compel him to appear, the chairmen of two House committees announced.
Mueller's unusual back-to-back testimony in front of the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees is likely to be the most highly anticipated congressional hearing in years, particularly given Mueller's resolute silence throughout his two-year investigation into Russian contacts with President Donald Trump's campaign . Mueller never responded to angry, public attacks from Trump, nor did he ever personally join his prosecutors in court or make announcements of criminal charges from the team.
His sole public statement came from the Justice Department podium last month as he announced his departure, when he sought to explain his decision to not indict Trump or to accuse him of criminal conduct. He also put lawmakers on notice that he did not ever intend to say more than what he put in the 448-page report.
https://www.wsbtv.com/news/national...fy-before-2-house-panels-next-month/961488081
WASHINGTON (AP) - Former special counsel Robert Mueller has agreed to testify publicly before Congress on July 17 after Democrats issued subpoenas to compel him to appear, the chairmen of two House committees announced.
Mueller's unusual back-to-back testimony in front of the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees is likely to be the most highly anticipated congressional hearing in years, particularly given Mueller's resolute silence throughout his two-year investigation into Russian contacts with President Donald Trump's campaign . Mueller never responded to angry, public attacks from Trump, nor did he ever personally join his prosecutors in court or make announcements of criminal charges from the team.
His sole public statement came from the Justice Department podium last month as he announced his departure, when he sought to explain his decision to not indict Trump or to accuse him of criminal conduct. He also put lawmakers on notice that he did not ever intend to say more than what he put in the 448-page report.
Dershowitz: Dems Are 'Shooting Themselves in Foot' for Demanding Mueller Testify
Leah Barkoukis Leah Barkoukis| @LeahBarkoukis |Posted: Jun 26, 2019 6:05 AM
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahb...tify-are-shooting-themselves-in-foot-n2549009
Alan Dershowitz said Democrats will come to regret subpoenaing special counsel Robert Mueller, who agreed to testify later this summer.
“I’m trying to stop them from shooting themselves in the foot,” he said on Fox News’s “The Ingraham Angle.”
The Harvard law professor was responding to a clip from House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), who said on CNN that Mueller will answer the questions given to him.
“There is no right to defy a congressional subpoena," he said. "The White House might assert some privilege, but when they reveal a lot of the information to Mueller and even private attorneys, they waive the privilege. So I think he will answer the questions that are put to him, because it's his civic duty to do so and he's an upstanding prosecutor."
Dershowitz pointed out that Nadler seems to be forgetting that Mueller will be open to questioning from Republicans, too.
“He can't refuse to answer questions about the FISA application," Dershowitz said. "Those are the kind of questions that I think Republicans will be very well prepared to ask. Those are the kind of questions which are currently under investigation by the inspector general whose report we are waiting for. But those are not in any way precluded. So I think that they will regret having called him."
Mueller said he will testify before the House judiciary and intelligence committees on July 17.
Leah Barkoukis Leah Barkoukis| @LeahBarkoukis |Posted: Jun 26, 2019 6:05 AM
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahb...tify-are-shooting-themselves-in-foot-n2549009
Alan Dershowitz said Democrats will come to regret subpoenaing special counsel Robert Mueller, who agreed to testify later this summer.
“I’m trying to stop them from shooting themselves in the foot,” he said on Fox News’s “The Ingraham Angle.”
The Harvard law professor was responding to a clip from House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), who said on CNN that Mueller will answer the questions given to him.
“There is no right to defy a congressional subpoena," he said. "The White House might assert some privilege, but when they reveal a lot of the information to Mueller and even private attorneys, they waive the privilege. So I think he will answer the questions that are put to him, because it's his civic duty to do so and he's an upstanding prosecutor."
Dershowitz pointed out that Nadler seems to be forgetting that Mueller will be open to questioning from Republicans, too.
“He can't refuse to answer questions about the FISA application," Dershowitz said. "Those are the kind of questions that I think Republicans will be very well prepared to ask. Those are the kind of questions which are currently under investigation by the inspector general whose report we are waiting for. But those are not in any way precluded. So I think that they will regret having called him."
Mueller said he will testify before the House judiciary and intelligence committees on July 17.
House Dems Excited About Mueller Testimony, But Not Half As Excited As Republicans Are
Posted at 12:00 pm on June 26, 2019 by Elizabeth Vaughn
https://www.redstate.com/elizabeth-...eller-testimony-not-half-excited-republicans/
Democrats are delighted that Special Counsel Robert Mueller will testify under subpoena on July 17th before the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees. Don’t they realize that this move has the potential to backfire? Spectacularly?
There are so many reasons why this may not end well for Democrats or for Mueller.
For starters, let’s go back to Mueller’s nine minute press conference last month. Putting aside the investigation and the report itself for a moment, Mueller appeared to be completely overwhelmed. At the time, I wrote, “If you watch Mueller’s demeanor, especially when he first steps up to the podium, he appears extremely ill at ease. It’s hard to imagine that such a powerful man would be quite so nervous, but he appeared petrified. And all he had to do was read something. He gave the impression that if he had to answer a serious question, he would explode.
Historian and political commentator Mark Levin’s observation was that Mueller appeared feeble. He said, “this is not a man who would do well under seven, eight, nine hours of questioning, with the Republicans honing in on so many issues.”
Next, Mueller does not want to answer questions. He is vulnerable and has a lot to hide.
He is used to operating behind the scenes. He issues orders and, until now, has answered to no one. Not even to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. House Republicans, particularly Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and those like him, will rip off the curtain. He will be taken completely out of his comfort zone and will be expected to answer many uncomfortable questions. Here are a few.
1. Why did you accept the Special Counsel appointment when you had such obvious (and personal) conflicts of interest? (First, Mueller was interested in returning to his old job as FBI Director. President Trump turned him down the day before Rosenstein appointed him to the Special Counsel; Next, Mueller had a close long-term relationship with James Comey, whose firing triggered the Special Counsel; Last, Mueller had been involved in a financial dispute with Trump years ago over a portion of his membership fee ($15,000) at one of Trump’s golf clubs.)
2. When did you learn that President Trump had not colluded with the Russians? (Republicans will press him on this.)
3. Why did you choose only Democrats for your investigation team? (Special Counsel rules require a bipartisan team. They also require that the Special Counsel be a Washington outsider. Mueller was the ultimate Washington insider.)
4. Why did you give the strong impression during your press conference that, although there may very well have been a prosecutable case against the President, you weren’t able to draw a conclusion due to the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel rules? And, given that you were able to draw a conclusion about collusion, why couldn’t you have done so on obstruction?
(Specifically, he said: “If I had evidence, and that evidence was clear that he did not commit a crime, we would have said so.”
“Charging the President with a crime was not an option we could consider.”)
Attorney General William Barr was asked about why Mueller had failed to come to a conclusion on the question of obstruction of justice during his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 1st. He said, “We were frankly surprised that they were not going to reach a decision on obstruction and we asked them a lot about the reasoning behind this. Mueller stated three times to us in that meeting, in response to our questioning, that he emphatically was not saying that but for the OLC opinion he would have found obstruction.”
Barr made a similar remark at the press conference he held prior to the public release of the redacted Mueller Report. He told reporters, “We specifically asked him about the OLC opinion and whether or not he was taking a position that he would have found a crime but for the existence of the OLC opinion. And he made it very clear several times that was not his position.”
5. Why did you stir up impeachment fever among House Democrats during your press conference? (Mueller tossed out a not so thinly veiled call to action.)
6. Why did you ignore Hillary Clinton and her obvious crimes of obstruction of justice? Why did you ignore her collusion with Russia and Ukraine?
7. When did you realize the Steele dossier was a pack of lies? And that the FBI had obtained a warrant to spy on Carter Page using the bogus dossier as the basis of their application?
8. A DOJ court filing shows that the FBI actually began spying on Michael Flynn in January 2016 rather than December 2016 as the FBI and the Mueller report maintain. Please explain.
9. The Mueller report omits a significant sentence from a voicemail left for Michael Flynn’s attorney’s by Trump’s attorney, John Dowd, which materially changes the meaning of the message. Please explain.
10. In the opening of the report, the Mueller team ties Ukrainian businessman Konstantin Kilimnik, who worked for Paul Manafort’s lobbying firm, to Russian intelligence. The reality is that Kilimnik was a top informant for the U.S. State Department and other Western intelligence agencies as well. Please explain.
And several more from American Greatness’ Julie Kelly:
11. In Volume II, page 103, in reference to the participants in the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, you refer to “the firm that produced the Steele reporting.” Why did you intentionally omit citing the name Fusion GPS or its owner, Glenn Simpson, throughout the 448-page report?
12. Did you know that at the same time Fusion GPS was working to collect opposition research on Donald Trump for the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee it also was representing Prevezon, a Russian-based company sanctioned by the U.S. government?
13. Why did you omit the fact that Glenn Simpson was working with Natalia Veselnitskya, the so-called Russian lawyer, on the Prevezon project and that Simpson met with her before the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting that she attended with Trump campaign associates including Donald Trump, Jr.?
14. Why did you also omit the fact the Glenn Simpson was working with Rinat Akhmetshin—another attendee of the Trump Tower meeting—on the Prevezon project and that Simpson met with both Veselnitskya and Akhmetshin the day after the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting?
15. Your office scrubbed the iPhone devices used by Peter Strzok and Lisa Page after they were dismissed from the team. Is that obstruction of justice since both are subjects of ongoing congressional investigations?
16. At what point did Comey inform Trump that the campaign was under investigation since there is no indication in Comey’s own memos that he disclosed that information to the president at any time prior to March 2017?
17. Aside from Comey’s own memos, do you have additional evidence to support the allegation that the president asked Comey to drop any inquiries related to Michael Flynn?
18. The report cites numerous news articles, including a few that contain classified information sourced by anonymous government officials. As you know, it is a felony to disclose classified information, such as intercepted phone calls with foreign ambassadors under surveillance and the existence of a FISA warrant. Did you identify any of the government officials who were illegally leaking classified information to the news media?
19. Is it illegal for the president of the United States to fire the FBI director, with or without cause?
20. Is it illegal for the president of the United States to consider firing, or to fire, a special counsel?
This is not a complete list. It could go on from here. By the end of the day, we might actually start feeling sorry for Mr. Mueller…Nah.
We all know what this investigation was about. It was an unsuccessful attempt to remove President Trump from office.
Still, I do have one final question for him. If it was not your job to determine if the President had committed a crime, what have you been doing for the past 22 months?
Posted at 12:00 pm on June 26, 2019 by Elizabeth Vaughn
https://www.redstate.com/elizabeth-...eller-testimony-not-half-excited-republicans/
Democrats are delighted that Special Counsel Robert Mueller will testify under subpoena on July 17th before the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees. Don’t they realize that this move has the potential to backfire? Spectacularly?
There are so many reasons why this may not end well for Democrats or for Mueller.
For starters, let’s go back to Mueller’s nine minute press conference last month. Putting aside the investigation and the report itself for a moment, Mueller appeared to be completely overwhelmed. At the time, I wrote, “If you watch Mueller’s demeanor, especially when he first steps up to the podium, he appears extremely ill at ease. It’s hard to imagine that such a powerful man would be quite so nervous, but he appeared petrified. And all he had to do was read something. He gave the impression that if he had to answer a serious question, he would explode.
Historian and political commentator Mark Levin’s observation was that Mueller appeared feeble. He said, “this is not a man who would do well under seven, eight, nine hours of questioning, with the Republicans honing in on so many issues.”
Next, Mueller does not want to answer questions. He is vulnerable and has a lot to hide.
He is used to operating behind the scenes. He issues orders and, until now, has answered to no one. Not even to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. House Republicans, particularly Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and those like him, will rip off the curtain. He will be taken completely out of his comfort zone and will be expected to answer many uncomfortable questions. Here are a few.
1. Why did you accept the Special Counsel appointment when you had such obvious (and personal) conflicts of interest? (First, Mueller was interested in returning to his old job as FBI Director. President Trump turned him down the day before Rosenstein appointed him to the Special Counsel; Next, Mueller had a close long-term relationship with James Comey, whose firing triggered the Special Counsel; Last, Mueller had been involved in a financial dispute with Trump years ago over a portion of his membership fee ($15,000) at one of Trump’s golf clubs.)
2. When did you learn that President Trump had not colluded with the Russians? (Republicans will press him on this.)
3. Why did you choose only Democrats for your investigation team? (Special Counsel rules require a bipartisan team. They also require that the Special Counsel be a Washington outsider. Mueller was the ultimate Washington insider.)
4. Why did you give the strong impression during your press conference that, although there may very well have been a prosecutable case against the President, you weren’t able to draw a conclusion due to the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel rules? And, given that you were able to draw a conclusion about collusion, why couldn’t you have done so on obstruction?
(Specifically, he said: “If I had evidence, and that evidence was clear that he did not commit a crime, we would have said so.”
“Charging the President with a crime was not an option we could consider.”)
Attorney General William Barr was asked about why Mueller had failed to come to a conclusion on the question of obstruction of justice during his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 1st. He said, “We were frankly surprised that they were not going to reach a decision on obstruction and we asked them a lot about the reasoning behind this. Mueller stated three times to us in that meeting, in response to our questioning, that he emphatically was not saying that but for the OLC opinion he would have found obstruction.”
Barr made a similar remark at the press conference he held prior to the public release of the redacted Mueller Report. He told reporters, “We specifically asked him about the OLC opinion and whether or not he was taking a position that he would have found a crime but for the existence of the OLC opinion. And he made it very clear several times that was not his position.”
5. Why did you stir up impeachment fever among House Democrats during your press conference? (Mueller tossed out a not so thinly veiled call to action.)
6. Why did you ignore Hillary Clinton and her obvious crimes of obstruction of justice? Why did you ignore her collusion with Russia and Ukraine?
7. When did you realize the Steele dossier was a pack of lies? And that the FBI had obtained a warrant to spy on Carter Page using the bogus dossier as the basis of their application?
8. A DOJ court filing shows that the FBI actually began spying on Michael Flynn in January 2016 rather than December 2016 as the FBI and the Mueller report maintain. Please explain.
9. The Mueller report omits a significant sentence from a voicemail left for Michael Flynn’s attorney’s by Trump’s attorney, John Dowd, which materially changes the meaning of the message. Please explain.
10. In the opening of the report, the Mueller team ties Ukrainian businessman Konstantin Kilimnik, who worked for Paul Manafort’s lobbying firm, to Russian intelligence. The reality is that Kilimnik was a top informant for the U.S. State Department and other Western intelligence agencies as well. Please explain.
And several more from American Greatness’ Julie Kelly:
11. In Volume II, page 103, in reference to the participants in the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, you refer to “the firm that produced the Steele reporting.” Why did you intentionally omit citing the name Fusion GPS or its owner, Glenn Simpson, throughout the 448-page report?
12. Did you know that at the same time Fusion GPS was working to collect opposition research on Donald Trump for the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee it also was representing Prevezon, a Russian-based company sanctioned by the U.S. government?
13. Why did you omit the fact that Glenn Simpson was working with Natalia Veselnitskya, the so-called Russian lawyer, on the Prevezon project and that Simpson met with her before the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting that she attended with Trump campaign associates including Donald Trump, Jr.?
14. Why did you also omit the fact the Glenn Simpson was working with Rinat Akhmetshin—another attendee of the Trump Tower meeting—on the Prevezon project and that Simpson met with both Veselnitskya and Akhmetshin the day after the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting?
15. Your office scrubbed the iPhone devices used by Peter Strzok and Lisa Page after they were dismissed from the team. Is that obstruction of justice since both are subjects of ongoing congressional investigations?
16. At what point did Comey inform Trump that the campaign was under investigation since there is no indication in Comey’s own memos that he disclosed that information to the president at any time prior to March 2017?
17. Aside from Comey’s own memos, do you have additional evidence to support the allegation that the president asked Comey to drop any inquiries related to Michael Flynn?
18. The report cites numerous news articles, including a few that contain classified information sourced by anonymous government officials. As you know, it is a felony to disclose classified information, such as intercepted phone calls with foreign ambassadors under surveillance and the existence of a FISA warrant. Did you identify any of the government officials who were illegally leaking classified information to the news media?
19. Is it illegal for the president of the United States to fire the FBI director, with or without cause?
20. Is it illegal for the president of the United States to consider firing, or to fire, a special counsel?
This is not a complete list. It could go on from here. By the end of the day, we might actually start feeling sorry for Mr. Mueller…Nah.
We all know what this investigation was about. It was an unsuccessful attempt to remove President Trump from office.
Still, I do have one final question for him. If it was not your job to determine if the President had committed a crime, what have you been doing for the past 22 months?
This is going to be verrrry interesting to watch unfold.
FOX NEWS FLASHPublished 40 mins ago
Hannity drills down on questions Mueller must be asked: 'When did he know there was no collusion?'
By David Montanaro | Fox News
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/sean-hannity-questions-robert-mueller-must-be-asked
Sean Hannity and a powerful lineup of guests laid out the questions that Republicans must ask Special Counsel Robert Mueller when he testifies publicly on July 17.
After news broke late Wednesday that Mueller will appear after receiving a subpoena from House Democrats, Hannity raised the question of whether Republicans will be the ones to go on the offensive.
The president himself signaled his interest in that line of questioning in reacting to the Mueller hearing news in an interview Wednesday on Fox Business Network's "Mornings with Maria."
"They got caught and they're running around going wild trying to do everything they can, but they spied on my campaign, it's as simple as that," Trump said, referring to the probe's origins at the FBI. "It's so illegal, it's probably the biggest political scandal in history and they got caught doing it.”
Hannity asked a few of his most pressing questions to Trump's attorney Jay Sekulow, who agreed that he could make a "list of 100 questions."
"I have a few questions for Mueller that I think guys like Jim Jordan, Mark Meadows, Doug Collins and others would ask. You know, for example, when did he know that there was no collusion? Why did he have such a broad mandate to focus on FARA violations, taxi medallions, loan applications, you know, years and years and decades-old tax issues?" Hannity asked.
"He knew about the dirty Russian dossier. How does he answer the question about why he never, ever, looked into that? I don't think there's a good answer for him."
Later on the show, he discussed the upcoming testimony with Sen. Lindsey Graham, who charged that the hearing will "blow up in [the] face" of House Democrats.
Hannity asked how Mueller would respond to questions about why he brought Democratic attorneys onto his investigative team, including Andrew Weissmann.
"He couldn't find one Republican -- not one?" Hannity asked Graham, going on to say his "big question" comes down to the Steele dossier and what then-FBI Director James Comey told Trump shortly before he became president.
"There's James Comey in Trump Tower saying, 'Well we have this dossier. It's salacious, but it's unverified.' January 2017, before [Trump] becomes president," he recalled, questioning how the dossier could have been used by the FBI to obtain a surveillance warrant in October 2016.
Hannity said the "unverified" nature of the dossier was confirmed in testimony by Steele.
"We know Comey lied. He lied in October 2016 to January 2017. But he had to lie in October 2016 because Steele undercuts his story," Hannity claimed.
CLICK TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Graham agreed that the timeline and the explanations don't "add up."
"The dossier is a bunch of garbage. I can tell you without any doubt it's a bunch of garbage. And it's used to get a warrant on an American citizen and somebody's going to be held accountable for that."
Watch the segments with Hannity in the clips above and don't miss more on this story on "Hannity," each night at 9pm ET on Fox News Channel.
David Montanaro is an editor with Fox News.
Hannity drills down on questions Mueller must be asked: 'When did he know there was no collusion?'
By David Montanaro | Fox News
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/sean-hannity-questions-robert-mueller-must-be-asked
Sean Hannity and a powerful lineup of guests laid out the questions that Republicans must ask Special Counsel Robert Mueller when he testifies publicly on July 17.
After news broke late Wednesday that Mueller will appear after receiving a subpoena from House Democrats, Hannity raised the question of whether Republicans will be the ones to go on the offensive.
The president himself signaled his interest in that line of questioning in reacting to the Mueller hearing news in an interview Wednesday on Fox Business Network's "Mornings with Maria."
"They got caught and they're running around going wild trying to do everything they can, but they spied on my campaign, it's as simple as that," Trump said, referring to the probe's origins at the FBI. "It's so illegal, it's probably the biggest political scandal in history and they got caught doing it.”
Hannity asked a few of his most pressing questions to Trump's attorney Jay Sekulow, who agreed that he could make a "list of 100 questions."
"I have a few questions for Mueller that I think guys like Jim Jordan, Mark Meadows, Doug Collins and others would ask. You know, for example, when did he know that there was no collusion? Why did he have such a broad mandate to focus on FARA violations, taxi medallions, loan applications, you know, years and years and decades-old tax issues?" Hannity asked.
"He knew about the dirty Russian dossier. How does he answer the question about why he never, ever, looked into that? I don't think there's a good answer for him."
Later on the show, he discussed the upcoming testimony with Sen. Lindsey Graham, who charged that the hearing will "blow up in [the] face" of House Democrats.
Hannity asked how Mueller would respond to questions about why he brought Democratic attorneys onto his investigative team, including Andrew Weissmann.
"He couldn't find one Republican -- not one?" Hannity asked Graham, going on to say his "big question" comes down to the Steele dossier and what then-FBI Director James Comey told Trump shortly before he became president.
"There's James Comey in Trump Tower saying, 'Well we have this dossier. It's salacious, but it's unverified.' January 2017, before [Trump] becomes president," he recalled, questioning how the dossier could have been used by the FBI to obtain a surveillance warrant in October 2016.
Hannity said the "unverified" nature of the dossier was confirmed in testimony by Steele.
"We know Comey lied. He lied in October 2016 to January 2017. But he had to lie in October 2016 because Steele undercuts his story," Hannity claimed.
CLICK TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Graham agreed that the timeline and the explanations don't "add up."
"The dossier is a bunch of garbage. I can tell you without any doubt it's a bunch of garbage. And it's used to get a warrant on an American citizen and somebody's going to be held accountable for that."
Watch the segments with Hannity in the clips above and don't miss more on this story on "Hannity," each night at 9pm ET on Fox News Channel.
David Montanaro is an editor with Fox News.