The final implosion of Robert Mueller. (Judiciary)



With his gaunt appearance, insecure answers, and stumbling speech Robert Mueller's testimony has worked to shatter his standing as the authoritative witness to justify the impeachment of President Trump.


On July 22 House Intelligence Committee Chair Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) claimed that the rationale for pulling former FBI Director Robert Mueller before his committee and the House Judiciary Committee was necessary so that Mueller could "bring it to life", referring of course to his report submitted in April. At this point Schiff and the other Democratic committee chairs Jerry Nadler (Judiciary) and Elijah Cummings (Oversight) have staked their fortunes on Mueller being able to show that Trump and his associates obstructed justice in the course of his investigation as opposed to previous claims that their was "ample evidence of collusion in plain sight".

Yet even the more modest goal of proving obstruction has evaded them during Nadler's committee hearing. After taking an entire morning to quiz Mueller, the Democrats have only helped to demonstrate that the Special Counsel seems well past his prime, disoriented, and evasive in answering their queries. Here is a breakdown of the main reasons that Mueller's testimony may have hurt the impeachment campaign rather than helped it, and this is after only the Judiciary Committee hearing!

1. Memory: Yesterday . . . All my troubles seemed so far away



It would have been expected that he would attempt to limit the detail of his answers to the GOP committee members such as Jim Jordan (OH), Matt Gaetz (Fla) and Tom McClintock (Ca). However when questioned Republicans and by Democrats like Nadler, Steve Cohen (TN), Hakeem Jeffries, and others he had difficulty following the questioning and had to ask to repeat the questions repeatedly. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA) was midway through a long question when Mueller had to ask her to start from the beginning. Later under questioning from Greg Stanton (D-CA) Mueller failed to answer correctly which president appointed him as District Attorney for Massachusetts.

The demeanour of Mueller was so weak that Fox News' Chris Wallace (himself a fierce critic of Trump) called the testimony a "disaster for Democrats" during the first recess of the committee.

2. Relevance: Purview to a Kill


As expected the former Special Counsel attempted during the hearing to avoid making statements beyond the text of the report. This was for the obvious reason that any deviation could be pounced upon by critics or political opponents to claim that he was contradicting it. He repeatedly answered questions attempting to lead him to elaborate with "that's beyond my purview". But when challenged about various angles of inquiry this answer began to appear ludicrous. The application of this answer to certain topics made it clear that his investigation was not a pursuit of the truth about Russian interference, and indeed the logic was difficult to follow:

  • When questioned by GOP members like Doug Collins (GA), Steve Chabot (OH) and others he seemed unaware of who the firm Fusion GPS. This would suggest he was unaware of who was involved in producing the Steele Dossier.
  • When questioned by Gaetz (see video above) concerning the truthfulness of the Steele Dossier itself. Gaetz challenged him by questioning why therefore Mueller could find it to be within his purview to indict Paul Manafort for crimes dating years before the 2016 campaign that had no connection to Trump. Mueller then punted and attempted to say that this was something for the FBI and Department and Justice to answer for.
  • When Democrat David Cicilline (RI) asked concerning a message that Trump may have dictated to Corey Lewandowski meant for Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Mueller responded with "I am not going to get into what we may or may not have included in the investigation".
  • After Democrat Ted Lieu (CA) laid out a series of questions that Mueller affirmed could lead to an obstruction charge, Mueller responded at the end that his answers do not mean that he "subscribes" to what Lieu is trying prove.

3. Clarity: Objection tango

Together with contradictions in the prosecution's logic and Mueller's weak countenance, the responses he gave showed that he was not truly consistent in knowing the role that the Special Counsel would play. During Guy Reschenthaler's (R-PA) time Mueller could not respond to the testimony given by former Clinton administration Attorney General Janet Reno that mandated that the Special Counsel must produce a clear indictment when concluding an investigation of a president, or not issue a report at all:
"Under our system, we presume innocence and we value privacy. We believe that information obtained during a criminal investigation should, in most all cases, be made public only if there is an indictment and prosecution, not in lengthy and detailed reports filed after a decision has been made not to prosecute, The final report provides a forum for unfairly airing a target's dirty laundry."
Overall, the morning was a stream of disappointments for Nadler's committee. In fact, toward the end it became clear that rather than illuminate more facts concerning collusion and obstruction of justice, the testimony showed that Mueller was only willing to confirm the facts repeated to him by committee members so long as they were already defined within his report. This did the opposite of what Schiff was calling for. Rather than bring the report to life through Mueller's live testimony, it drove a wooden stake through both his public image and the usefulness of the report to impeachment.

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