In one week, Robert Mueller will raise his right hand on Capitol Hill, giving lawmakers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to shed further light on a crucial national question. And, if history is a guide, most of them will squander it.

Rather than mining the hearing for valuable new information on what happened between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign, they’ll likely be preening for the cameras, taking political potshots and leaving the former special counsel's enduring mysteries unsolved.


Mueller has almost totally evaded the spotlight since he began his 22-month investigation of Russian contacts with Donald Trump's campaign. He has spoken publicly only once since he issued a 448-page report that contained damning findings on the president’s efforts to interfere in the probe—and in that appearance he took no questions. He also said the report itself is his testimony and made clear he’d resist any attempts by Congress to wrest more details out of him.

But Mueller is still obliged to face lawmakers’ questions. So as the moment approaches, POLITICO asked its newsroom’s chief Muellerologists—Natasha Bertrand, Kyle Cheney, Andrew Desiderio, Josh Gerstein, Darren Samuelsohn—a simple question: What would you ask Mueller?

These five reporters have spent more than two years deciphering the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election; they’ve spent hours parsing every word of his cryptic comments and poring over every legal filing. They’ve also logged hundreds of hours in Washington, D.C., and Alexandria, Va., courtrooms reporting on the targets of his indictments; staked out dozens of closed-door Capitol Hill hearings; and grilled hundreds of lawmakers, lawyers and Trump campaign associates. One watched 20 hours of Mueller’s previous congressional testimony to prepare for this moment.

They settled on 11 questions that Mueller might actually answer and that could help Congress—and the American people—figure out what to do next. Here’s the list.

Why did you decide to end the investigation when you did?



Mueller wrapped up his inquiry at an interesting—and, some would argue, premature—moment. He concluded the probe before the trial of longtime Trump associate Roger Stone, which may have produced new information about WikiLeaks, Russia and the Trump campaign. He also wrapped it up before Rick Gates, a protégé of Trump’s imprisoned former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, completed his cooperation with the government.

His timing, three weeks after telling the attorney general that he did not intend to reach a conclusion on obstruction of justice, also raises questions about whether Attorney General William Barr requested that he should just wrap it up—or whether Mueller was influenced indirectly by Barr’s skepticism that the obstruction probe was even warranted. At a minimum, members of Congress should be able to tease out whether Mueller was discouraged from taking other investigative steps.

—Natasha Bertrand

Do you believe that your investigation, and the many criminal charges that resulted from it, will deter campaigns from accepting foreign “dirt” on their opponents in the future?



The president recently said he would accept foreign opposition research in 2020. But by not charging the participants of the Trump Tower meeting (at which Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort met with a Russian lawyer who offered dirt on Hillary Clinton) with campaign finance violations — and by citing possible “First Amendment questions” at issue in doing so — some legal scholars have argued that Mueller effectively created a loophole for foreign governments to give campaigns “opposition research” in the future under the guise of simply “recounting historically accurate facts.”

Challenging Mueller to expand upon the distinction he believes exists between sharing “accurate facts” with a campaign and an illegal campaign contribution in the form of foreign opposition research could further illuminate how he concluded that there was no conspiracy between Trump and Moscow to win the election.

—Natasha Bertrand

What would you have done differently?



Going simple may be the best way to break through Mueller’s sphinxlike demeanor. He just ran one of the biggest—and most scrutinized—investigations into presidential politics in modern American history. Certainly, he has ideas about different paths he could have taken.

Tossing the question out like this could also lead to follow-ups drilling into what Mueller thinks about taking the job in the first place, whether former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein should have recused himself as supervisor given his role in former FBI Director James Comey’s firing, whether he should have spoken up at all in public to defend himself against the Trump-fueled criticism, if he should have issued a subpoena for the president’s testimony, and whether he should have demanded a new Office of Legal Counsel analysis on a sitting president’s indictment.

-Darren Samuelsohn

What laws, policies or rules would you recommend changing in light of your investigation ?



Again, no one has spent more time digging into Russian espionage, stolen emails, foreign lobbying, social media manipulation and the myriad other topics that go straight to the heart of how the 2016 presidential campaign wasn’t on the total up and up. And as reserved as he was, Mueller took the opportunity at his one public appearance to emphasize the fact of foreign meddling in American elections. His suggestions for which laws or regulations need a revamp could go a long way toward making that happen.

Mueller could also help Congress and the Justice Department decide whether changes need to be made to the underlying question of how best to investigate the executive branch, a problem that each generation seems to tackle differently. The post-Watergate law establishing the mechanism for an independent counsel died in the wake of the Monica Lewinsky scandal; in its place came the DOJ regulations that Rosenstein used to tap Mueller. Surely, the now-former special counsel has some ideas about whether new law might be needed or whether the DOJ rules just need an oil change.

—Darren Samuelsohn

In your report, you noted that Donald Trump satisfied all three elements required in a court of law to show that the president committed obstruction of justice. Yet you declined to recommend charges. Isn’t demonstrating that the president committed all the elements of a crime essentially the same as saying that he broke the law?



Mueller will not say Trump committed a crime, so superfans expecting him to drop a bomb like this next week should prepare to be disappointed. Yet his findings essentially claimed Trump broke the law. The million-dollar question for Democrats is whether they can get Mueller to underscore that Trump likely committed a crime even if he can’t be charged. And it’s a question hundreds of former federal prosecutors have already weighed in on, stating definitively that Trump would have been charged with obstruction were he not the president.

However, in his report, Mueller stated he did not use a “traditional prosecutorial judgment,” citing in part the Office of Legal Counsel opinion that prohibits the indictment of a sitting president.

“Recall that Mueller’s decision not to make a pronouncement on the ultimate legal question was based on DOJ policy of not indicting the president,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a member of the House Judiciary Committee and a constitutional scholar. “It was not a judgment about the weight of the evidence. I would be curious to hear him respond to that question.”

Mueller has said accusing Trump of breaking the law without charging him would unfairly prejudice the president, giving him no recourse to clear his name. But Attorney General William Barr mocked that assertion during public testimony and noted that it’s conceivable the DOJ policy could be rescinded. Barr also said Mueller told him he wasn’t seeking the removal of the DOJ policy, leaving the impression that the special counsel didn’t feel he had enough evidence for a criminal case.

—Andrew Desiderio

In your only public comments about the probe, in May, you stated: “The Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing.” Isn’t impeachment the only formal process?



There is no constitutional process other than impeachment to accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing—and Mueller’s clear allusion was nevertheless couched enough to leave its meaning somewhat ambiguous. Democrats would like to make it crystal clear.

Mueller is likely to be careful not to inject the “I-word” into his public testimony, given the momentous political consequences should he say it out loud. More than a third of the House Democratic Caucus backs an impeachment inquiry, and if Mueller even utters “impeachment,” it could kick off a political firestorm — and would also draw attacks from Trump allies that Mueller is just out to get him.

In reality, impeachment is the only “other” process that can be employed to hold a sitting president accountable. Mueller knows this, and the extent to which he expounds on his one and only public statement could draw the House closer to formal impeachment proceedings.

—Andrew Desiderio

Do you agree with how Attorney General William Barr characterized your 448-page report and your statements to him?



Little is known about how Mueller feels about Barr’s handling of his two-year-long labor.

Mueller has been loath to publicly contradict Barr—his former boss, friend and longtime Justice Department colleague—even while the attorney general has openly criticized his handling of the investigation and raised doubts about Mueller’s legal theories. And Democrats have accused Barr for months of acting as a defense attorney for Trump, adopting positions meant to shield him from the most damaging information contained in Mueller’s report.

Barr told the Senate Judiciary Committee in May that he found several of Mueller’s decisions and legal rationales odd and incorrect—from Mueller’s use of Trump’s Twitter statements as evidence of obstruction to his reasoning for declining to say whether he believed Trump committed a crime.

Despite Mueller’s reluctance to publicly contradict his former boss, Democrats see his testimony as the one chance for Mueller to set the record straight. Did he know in advance that Barr would insert his own judgment on the obstruction debate before Mueller’s report was made public? And did he voice any opinion on whether Barr or Congress should judge whether the president committed a crime?

—Kyle Cheney

Why didn't you push harder to interview Trump in person, and can you help us understand how significant it was that some witnesses lied to you, deleted or lost communications or pleaded the Fifth to deprive you of testimony?



Mueller made clear that his decision not to charge anyone in President Donald Trump's orbit with conspiracy was not because the issue was baseless. Rather, Mueller documented detailed evidence he gathered about more than 100 contacts between Trump campaign associates and Russian operatives. But he noted that his information contained enormous gaps.

There were mysteriously missing text messages between advisers Erik Prince and Steve Bannon. There were voluminous encrypted messages that were unrecoverable. And he never got interviews with Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and other witnesses who he said pleaded the Fifth to avoid testifying. Mueller also indicated several witnesses had lied to him—most notably Paul Manafort, who entered a plea deal with Mueller only to have it thrown out after prosecutors accused him of continuing to lie.

Trump and his allies have spent weeks suggesting that Mueller had unfettered access to all the information he needed to form his conclusions. Mueller can provide a clearer sense of whether the paths he was unable to pursue were significant enough that his conclusions might have been altered.

—Kyle Cheney

At what point did you decide not to take a position on obstruction by the president, and did you or your office give Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein any indication before March 2019 that an inconclusive finding on that issue was a possibility? And how was it decided that Rosenstein could supervise the investigation despite his key role in the firing of FBI Director James Comey?



Rosenstein publicly claimed he was closely supervising Mueller’s office throughout its 22-month run. However, Barr said he and Rosenstein were stunned Mueller haad elected not to reach a conclusion on whether the president obstructed justice.

The Justice Department has said there were no instances in which Rosenstein or Barr vetoed any proposed action by Mueller—something that would have triggered a report to Congress. But it’s unclear just how involved Rosenstein was in Mueller’s work and whether there was tension between Rosenstein and Mueller’s team over any issues before the probe began to wrap up.

There’s also never been a detailed public accounting of how Rosenstein managed to serve as both a supervisor of the probe and a witness to some of the conduct by Trump that was investigated as potential obstruction of justice. The former deputy attorney general has said he discussed the issue with Mueller but the resolution remains murky.

—Josh Gerstein

Trump’s most frequent public critique of your team was that it was made up of “angry Democrats” and “Trump haters.” Should you have paid more attention to the appearances and potential biases of people you hired, and were the duties of any attorneys or FBI agents limited out of conflict-of-interest concerns?



Mueller’s probe has been the subject of relentless criticism from Trump, who frequently drew attention to the fact that many of the former special counsel’s prosecutors were registered Democrats or had donated to Democratic causes. None had donated to Trump’s campaign, while one was an attorney for the Clinton Foundation. Less scrutiny was given to Mueller’s FBI squad, of which at least one member was a political appointee of President George W. Bush.

Mueller never engaged the criticism publicly, but his allies noted that federal law prohibits making such appointments or assignments based on political affiliation and donations. Yet, the attacks on the impartiality of the special prosecutor’s team clearly stuck, particularly with Trump supporters.

—Josh Gerstein

What’s next for you?



In his May public statement, the 74-year-old Mueller said he was going to “return to private life.” What that means remains to be seen. Sure, it’s possible he won’t elaborate, but lawmakers could still try to get him on the record saying whether he’s retiring or headed back to private law practice or to academia. And while people who know Mueller doubt he’d do it, this may be the only chance for Congress to find out if he’s even remotely considering following in the footsteps of his deputy Andrew Weissmann and writing a book or memoir to tell his story.

—Darren Samuelsohn

