He isn’t giving up on getting percipient witnesses (indeed, he is moving forward on contempt votes for former White House counsel Donald McGahn), but he also isn’t waiting for their appearance to get going. He’ll use figures like former White House counsel John Dean and veteran prosecutors to take viewers through the report. Nadler knows there are multiple counts of obstruction of justice one could construct from the Mueller report. Without calling these impeachment hearings, Nadler has now set course to show the American people why Mueller didn’t make a decision, what he found, how those findings support a finding of obstruction of justice, and why that crime is antithetical to the president’s oath (to execute the laws and uphold the Constitution).

Nadler’s plan suggests he and his fellow Democrats understand the task is public education. Without the public’s full appreciation of Mueller’s findings, the House will not be able to press forward with impeachment or other possible steps (e.g., censure). As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) likes to say in quoting Abraham Lincoln: “Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.” Nadler seeks to shape public sentiment through the oversight process.

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Likewise, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) intends to plunge into the Mueller report to inform the public as to what President Trump and/or his team did (e.g., meet, seek and accept help) and didn’t do (e.g., call the FBI) in response to Russian attempts to influence our elections. CNN reports:

House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff said Friday that his committee would hold a public hearing on the “counterintelligence implications” of volume one of the Mueller report, which focused on Russia’s 2016 election meddling and contacts between Trump’s team and Russian officials. The hearing will include two former FBI officials as witnesses: Stephanie Douglas and Robert Anderson, who are both former senior FBI officials. Neither worked on the special counsel investigation itself.

Here, too, Schiff is aiming to educate the public using expert witnesses. No doubt they will explain the basis of the counterintelligence investigation and assess, based on prior investigations, the evidence that led to opening the case. In a statement, Schiff declared, “Our committee’s goal will be to explain to the American people the serious counterintelligence concerns raised by the Mueller Report, examine the depth and breadth of the unethical and unpatriotic conduct it describes and produce prescriptive remedies to ensure that this never happens again.”

For Schiff, the task is not only to hold Trump and his team to account for conduct that encouraged Russians’ meddling and assisted in their denial, but to recommend legislation that potentially would ban solicitation of foreign help and penalize failure to report such foreign contacts to federal authorities.

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For Nadler, success in telling the story of Trump’s obstruction will depend largely on getting those percipient witnesses to testify. McGahn, Hope Hicks and other key players are essential to bring the Mueller report to life and underscore the seriousness of the president’s assault on the rule of law — which he swore to uphold. Nadler and/or Schiff may still subpoena Mueller to provide the must-see TV moments, but really what they want to do is shred the “no collusion, no obstruction” lie that Trump and his attorney general have propagated. Without that, “nothing can succeed.”

For grasping the critical role of public education and opinion while working to enforce Congress’s subpoena power and its oversight powers more generally, Nadler, Schiff and their staffs deserve our thanks. Well done, Mr. Chairmen — and keep at it.