michael barbaro

From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.” Today: Robert Mueller finally testifies before Congress, declaring that his two-year-long investigation did not exonerate President Trump and that Russia will meddle again. It’s Thursday, July 25.

michael schmidt

Hello.

michael barbaro

Hey.

michael schmidt

Sorry. I was listening to Trump.

michael barbaro

What was he saying?

michael schmidt

You know, that it’s terrible for the Democrats.

michael barbaro

Are you eating?

michael schmidt

Yeah. I know that’s not proper.

michael barbaro

What are you eating?

michael schmidt

Cookie.

michael barbaro

Mike Schmidt covered Mueller’s testimony for The Times.

archived recording (jerry nadler) The Judiciary Committee will come to order.

michael barbaro

O.K., Mike, let’s talk about these hearings. You had warned us that Robert Mueller would be highly disciplined, he would be circumspect, and that he would, more or less, deliberately try and be boring. So how did he start this day of hearings?

archived recording (robert mueller) Good morning, Chairman Nadler. As you know, in May 2017, the acting attorney general asked me to serve as special counsel.

michael schmidt

Mueller starts with an opening statement that largely stays within the four square corners of his report.

archived recording (robert mueller) Second, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired with the Russian government in its election interference activities.

michael schmidt

He lays out what they found.

archived recording (robert mueller) And given my role as a prosecutor, there are reasons why my testimony will necessarily be limited.

michael schmidt

And as a warning to the House members, he’s essentially saying, you guys can try and get me to say the things that you want politically for me to say, but I’m probably not going to say them.

archived recording (robert mueller) I therefore will not be able to answer questions about certain areas that I know are of public interest.

michael schmidt

And then what we see at the end of his statement is a little peek that he gave us into his mind.

archived recording (robert mueller) And let me say one more thing. Over the course of my career, I have seen a number of challenges to our democracy, and the Russian government’s effort to interfere in our election is among the most serious.

michael schmidt

He’s there because there’s three issues to talk about — obstruction, collusion and Russian interference in the election. And he shows at the end of that statement the importance that the issue of Russian interference has to him.

michael barbaro

That it’s the most important?

michael schmidt

Correct.

archived recording (robert mueller) And as I said on May 29, this deserves the attention of every American. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

michael schmidt

Mueller’s sort of signaling, look, Russian interference in the election in 2016 was a huge deal, and it could be a problem going forward. Please pay attention.

michael barbaro

Right. And, of course, the Democrats are in charge of these hearings, so how do they start their questioning of Mueller?

archived recording (jerry nadler) I will begin by recognizing myself for five minutes.

michael schmidt

So right off the bat, Jerry Nadler, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, ticks through a bunch of yes-or-no questions that show that the president’s statements about the Mueller investigation’s findings are inaccurate.

archived recording (jerry nadler) The president has repeatedly claimed that your report found there was no obstruction and that it completely and totally exonerated him.

michael schmidt

That is not what your report said, is it?

archived recording (robert mueller) Correct. It is not what the report said. archived recording (jerry nadler) And what about total exoneration? Did you actually totally exonerate the president?

michael schmidt

No.

michael barbaro

Right, and those felt exactly like what you had predicted the Democrats wanted Mueller to say and that what Neal Katyal, who wrote the rules for the special counsel, actually advised the Democrats to do.

michael schmidt

Yeah, and that’s potentially powerful political fodder heading into an election.

michael barbaro

Right, and it’s also a kind of embrace of what the Democrats understand to be this limited, restrained approach from Mueller, that they’re kind of working with what they’ve got.

michael schmidt

Yeah. The other thing that Mueller had done was say that he was not going to read from the report. So the Democrats were not even going to have the opportunity of using Mueller going through the document in his own voice as a way of bringing this to life. So they’re basically reduced to setting up yes-or-no questions that contrast between what Trump has said and what’s actually in the report. And the second thing is that it leaves the Democrats as the storytellers.

michael barbaro

O.K., how do the Democrats work within those constraints?

michael schmidt

They’re focusing on the greatest hits of the obstruction section of the report, Volume 2.

archived reporting (hakeem jeffries) Your investigation found evidence that President Trump took steps to terminate the special counsel, correct? archived recording (robert mueller) Correct. archived reporting (sheila jackson lee) The president orders Don McGahn to deny that the president tried to fire the special counsel and many others. Is that correct? archived recording (robert mueller) Yes. archived reporting (steve cohen) Despite knowing that Attorney General Sessions was not supposed to be involved the investigation, the president still tried to get the attorney general to unrecuse himself after you were appointed special counsel. Is that correct? archived recording (robert mueller) Yes.

michael schmidt

It’s the same incidents that we’ve been looking at for the past two years. But if you’re the average person and you have not obsessed about these different incidents, then if you looked up at the television on Wednesday morning, you were seeing an example of the president’s behavior perhaps in a way that you hadn’t before.

archived reporting (hakeem jeffries) The investigation found substantial evidence that when the president ordered Don McGahn to fire the special counsel and then lie about it, Donald Trump, one, committed an obstructive act, two, connected to an official proceeding, three, did so with corrupt intent. Those are the elements of obstruction of justice.

michael schmidt

And at the end, they said, if the president had been anyone besides the president, he would have definitely been charged with obstruction of justice.

archived recording (karen bass) If anyone else had ordered a witness to create a false record and cover up acts that are subject of a law enforcement investigation, that person would be facing criminal charges. archived recording (cedric richmond) It is clear that any other person who engaged in such conduct would be charged with a crime. archived recording (sylvia garcia) The point has been underscored many times, but I’ll repeat it. No one — archived recording 1 No one. archived recording 2 No one is above the law. archived recording 3 — is above the law. archived recording 4 — is above the law, no one.

michael schmidt

And they sort of say that quickly, hoping that maybe Mueller won’t say anything and his silence will sort of validate their claim. But at times Mueller would sort of step in and say, well, you know.

archived recording (robert mueller) And let me just say, if I might, I don’t subscribe, necessarily, to the way you analyze that. I’m not saying it’s out of the ballpark, but I’m not supportive of that analytical charge.

michael schmidt

That’s not the determination we made.

michael barbaro

Well, Mike, with that in mind, you had told us that the Democrats’ biggest goal, their kind of fantasy version of this hearing, would be to draw from Robert Mueller the concession that if Donald Trump were not president, he would be charged with a crime. And so what you’re describing so far seems like them not quite directly confronting that.

michael schmidt

So the Democrats are sort of plodding along, trying to get that great sound bite, that one killer quote from Mueller to really put things over the top. And then Congressman Ted Lieu of California comes up.

archived recording (ted lieu) Thank you, Director Mueller, for your long history of service to our country.

michael schmidt

And he goes directly for one of the chief questions about the report, which is, if it were not for this Justice Department rule that says that a president cannot be indicted, would Mueller have indicted the president?

archived recording (ted lieu) And I’d like to ask you the reason, again, that you did not indict Donald Trump is because of O.L.C. opinion stating that you cannot indict a sitting president, correct? archived recording (robert mueller) That is correct.

michael schmidt

Mueller says yes.

michael barbaro

A big moment.

michael schmidt

Correct. And in the office here, we’re all kind of looking at each other, saying, did he mean to say that? He knows what a big deal it would be to say he did believe the president broke the law because it essentially signals to Congress that there was enough to charge him. And if the prosecutor is saying that, then it certainly makes the notion of impeachment even greater. And this notion sort of hangs out there, and we’re like, wow, this could be pretty significant. But then —

archived recording (robert mueller) Now before we go to questions, I want to add one correction to my testimony this morning.

michael schmidt

— when Mueller comes back to begin the second half of questioning, he clarifies what he had said.

archived recording (robert mueller) I want to go back to one thing that was said this morning by Mr. Lieu, who said, and I quote, “You didn’t charge the president because of the O.L.C. opinion.” That is not the correct way to say it. As we say in the report and as I said at the opening, we did not reach a determination as to whether the president committed a crime.

michael barbaro

Wow. So he completely deflates this entire thing. He basically takes it back.

michael schmidt

He puts the kibosh on any news that he was going to make.

[music]

michael barbaro

We’ll be right back. So Mike, let’s turn to the Republicans. You told us that their goal was to maintain the status quo. Remind us exactly what that is.

michael schmidt

To get Mueller to reinforce the notion that there was no criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. So they sort of initially took a similar approach to Nadler and asked Mueller yes-or-no questions —

archived recording (doug collins) Is that any true? Your investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in the election interference activity? Volume 1, page 2. Volume 1, page 173. archived recording (robert mueller) Thank you. Yes. archived recording (doug collins) Yes, thank you.

michael schmidt

— that affirmed the most important point to them.

archived recording (doug collins) Isn’t it true the evidence did not establish that the president or those close to him were involved in the charged Russian computer hacking or active measure conspiracies or that the president otherwise had unlawful relationships with any Russian official? Volume 2, page 76, correct? archived recording (robert mueller) I leave the answer to the report. archived recording (doug collins) So yes.

michael schmidt

But they quickly pivoted to a different issue, which they picked at for a fair amount of time, and it turned out to be something a bit surprising.

archived recording (jim sensenbrenner) Why did we have all of this investigation of President Trump that the other side is talking about when you knew that you weren’t going to prosecute him?

michael schmidt

It was why, Mueller, if you knew you weren’t going to indict the president, did you continue with your investigation and produce this massive document with really embarrassing things about Trump and foist it on the public?

archived recording (john ratcliffe) You made no decision. You told us this morning and in your report that you made no determination. So respectfully, Director, you didn’t follow the special counsel regulations. It clearly says, write a confidential report about decisions reached. Nowhere in here does it say, write a report about decisions that weren’t reached. You wrote 180 pages — 180 pages about decisions that weren’t reached, about potential crimes that weren’t charged or decided.

michael barbaro

That kind of reminds me of something that you and I have discussed before, which is how former F.B.I. director James Comey handled the Hillary Clinton email server episode. He decides not to indict, comes out, gives a press conference, in many people’s minds, maligns her. And afterwards the question is, aren’t you not supposed to do that if you decline to prosecute?

michael schmidt

Correct. The Republicans are making a decent point about how criminal investigations of our politicians are ended — how should we disclose facts about them? — and, at the same time, being a bit disingenuous, because when Comey felt he needed to come out and lay out some of the evidence that they had collected in their investigation, the Republicans took that and ran with it to undermine her as a presidential candidate. So now they’re outraged that we’re looking at the fruits of a criminal investigation in which the central player, the president, has not been charged, and they’re complaining about it in a similar fashion to the way that Democrats complain about how Comey handled the Clinton thing.

archived recording (guy reschenthaler) The drafting and the publication of some of the information in this report without an indictment, without prosecution, frankly flies in the face of American justice, and I find those facts and this entire process un-American.

michael schmidt

It showed that the Republicans were not going to stop at anything to attack Mueller, that they were going to throw every single issue they could come up with, regardless of whether it was an intellectually honest one or not.

michael barbaro

And that’s not maintaining the status quo. That is undermining the special counsel and raising as many questions as possible about his investigation.

michael schmidt

Correct. It cut at his motivation in a way that other attacks on the investigation did not. It went directly to Mueller’s character and decisions he had made during the investigation.

michael barbaro

And what was Mueller’s response to this?

michael schmidt

It was similar to many responses he had during this, which was sort of like —

archived recording (john ratcliffe) Can you give me an example other than Donald Trump where the Justice Department determined that an investigated person was not exonerated because their innocence was not conclusively determined? archived recording (robert mueller) I cannot, but this is a unique situation. archived recording (john ratcliffe) O.K. Well, you can’t —

michael schmidt

O.K.

archived recording (robert mueller) I can’t agree with that characterization.

michael schmidt

All right. Like, you made your point. And it seemed like part of a larger strategy he was employing to sort of run out the clock, let them say whatever they want, acknowledge it and move on.

michael barbaro

O.K., so what else do the Republicans focus on?

michael schmidt

Not surprisingly, they went back to their greatest hits on the investigation.

archived recording (louie gohmert) So most prosecutors want to make sure there was no appearance of impropriety, but in your case, you hired a bunch of people that did not like the president.

michael schmidt

And raised questions about whether the investigators were biased.

archived recording (louie gohmert) Now let me ask you, when did you first learn of Peter Strzok’s animus toward Donald Trump? archived recording (robert mueller) In the summer of 2017. archived recording (louie gohmert) You didn’t know before he was hired for your team? archived recording (robert mueller) Know what? archived recording (louie gohmert) Peter Strzok hated Trump. archived recording (robert mueller) O.K. archived recording (louie gohmert) You didn’t know that before he was made part of your team, is that what you’re saying? archived recording (robert mueller) I did not know that. archived recording (louie gohmert) All right. When did you first learn — archived recording (robert mueller) When we did find out, I acted swiftly to have him reassigned elsewhere in the F.B.I.

michael schmidt

They also picked at continuously —

archived recording (devin nunes) The media began spreading this conspiracy theory in the spring of 2016, when Fusion GPS, funded by the D.N.C. and the Hillary Clinton campaign, started developing the Steele dossier.

michael schmidt

— the Steele dossier, the document of unverified allegations about ties between Trump and Russia.

archived recording (robert mueller) Well, what I can tell you is that the events that you are characterizing here now is part of another matter that is being handled by the Department of Justice.

michael barbaro

Which Mueller had said, I’m not going to talk about.

michael schmidt

Correct.

archived recording (robert mueller) Well, again, I’m not going to discuss the issues with regard to Mr. Steele.

michael schmidt

It was this persistent effort throughout the entire time, even though at the top of the hearing, he said he would not discuss it.

archived recording (elise stefanik) Did your office consider whether the Russian government used Steele’s sources to provide Steele with disinformation? archived recording (robert mueller) Again, I can’t speak to that. archived recording (elise stefanik) I understand. I’m asking these questions just for the record, so thanks for your patience.

michael barbaro

Mike, you started off by saying that success for the Republicans was maintaining the status quo, which may just be confirming the basic outlines of the Mueller report, especially the fact that there’s no criminality. But I wonder if this Republican strategy of focusing on all of these issues that raise questions about the investigation is a different kind of success for the Republicans, because they just kept bringing them up, and Robert Mueller didn’t really offer much pushback. For the most part, he kind of just seemed to disconnect.

michael schmidt

I think so, in some ways because they knew they would have or they certainly had a person they were questioning who wasn’t going to engage and fight and push back that hard. So it gave them the opportunity to sort of create their own sound bites of them giving it to Mueller while he was up there. And to that end, I think that it was successful, although they never really got Mueller to bite.

michael barbaro

Mike, what about Mueller and what you said would represent success for him? Did he achieve what he wanted in these hearings?

michael schmidt

Towards the end of the day —

archived recording (will hurd) Director Mueller, you’ve been asked many times this afternoon about collusion, obstruction of justice and impeachment, and the Steele dossier, and I don’t think your answers are going to change if I ask you about those questions, so I’m going to —

michael schmidt

Congressman Will Hurd of Texas asked Mueller —

archived recording (will hurd) As a former C.I.A. officer, I want to focus on something I think both sides of the political aisle can agree on, that is, how do we prevent Russian intelligence and other adversaries from doing this again?

michael schmidt

And you see sort of Mueller perk up and begin to really engage on this issue in a way that he hadn’t on others.

archived recording (will hurd) In your investigation, did you think that this was a single attempt by the Russians to get involved in our election, or did you find evidence to suggest they’ll try to do this again? archived recording (robert mueller) Oh, it wasn’t a single attempt. They’re doing it as we sit here.

michael schmidt

And he sort of gets a chance to ring the alarm bells about interference issues.

archived recording (robert mueller) And they expect to do it during the next campaign.

michael schmidt

And the Democrats lean into this, and they’re able to make something of it.

archived recording (mike quigley) If we could put up slide six — this just came out: WikiLeaks, I love WikiLeaks. Donald Trump, October 10, 2016. This WikiLeaks stuff is unbelievable. It’s like a treasure trove. Donald Trump, October 31, 2016.

michael schmidt

Congressman Quigley from Chicago brings up the fact that Donald Trump praised WikiLeaks.

archived recording (mike quigley) Do any of those quotes disturb you, Mr. Director? archived recording (robert mueller) I’m not sure I would say — archived recording (mike quigley) How do you react? archived recording (robert mueller) Well, problematic is an understatement in terms of what it displays, in terms of giving some, I don’t know, hope or some boost to what is and should be illegal activity.

michael schmidt

Congressman Welch asked Mueller —

archived recording (peter welch) Have we established a new normal from this past campaign that is going to apply to future campaigns so that if any one of us running for the U.S. House, any candidate for the U.S. Senate, any candidate for the presidency the United States aware that a hostile foreign power is trying to influence an election has no duty to report that to the F.B.I. or other authorities? archived recording (robert mueller) Well, I hope — archived recording (peter welch) Go ahead. archived recording (robert mueller) Well, I hope this is not the new normal, but I fear it is.

michael schmidt

And then Chairman Schiff —

archived recording (adam schiff) From your testimony today, I gather that you believe that knowingly accepting foreign assistance during a presidential campaign is an unethical thing to do. archived recording (robert mueller) And a crime — archived recording (adam schiff) And a crime. archived recording (robert mueller) — circumstances, yes. archived recording (adam schiff) And to the degree that it undermines our democracy and our institutions, we can agree that it’s also unpatriotic. archived recording (robert mueller) True. archived recording (adam schiff) And wrong. archived recording (robert mueller) True. archived recording (adam schiff) We should hold our elected officials to a standard higher than mere avoidance of criminality, shouldn’t we? archived recording (robert mueller) Absolutely.

michael barbaro

So this is a different Mueller than we’ve seen throughout the hearing, and he’s definitely stepping outside the four corners of the report. It feels like, in those last few exchanges, he’s kind of offering clear, tough judgments about the conduct of the president — not in terms of, necessarily, crimes committed, but just in terms of basic right and wrong.

michael schmidt

The report is about an investigation that looks at whether laws are broken. It wasn’t looking at questions of patriotism. But there is Mueller at the end of the day answering a question about that, about an ideal and a virtue that we have as a country, not about whether a law was broken. And maybe it took him until the end to loosen up and get there, but by the end of the day, you have the person that’s overseen this investigation for the past two years calling out this as bad behavior and as a potential problem. And that’s not nothing.

michael barbaro

Mike, you told us before these hearings that Democrats were determined to get Mueller to bring this report to life and thereby eventually shift public opinion on the president’s culpability to counteract the narrative that the president and that the attorney general, Bill Barr, have outlined, that Trump did nothing wrong, that this is a witch hunt, this is a waste of time. In the end, given everything you’ve just laid out, did the Democrats fulfill that mission?

michael schmidt

I don’t think so. We’ll have to see what the political fallout is in whether it really pushes House members to embrace impeachment, but we didn’t walk out of that hearing today with any major new disclosure about the president’s behavior.

michael barbaro

But I do want to remind you of something you told us the day before the hearing, which is that a realistic form of Democratic success, if they were not going to get Robert Mueller to say that the president committed a crime or would have been charged if he weren’t president, would be to just get him to affirm that the president’s major talking points are false. Was there no obstruction? No. Was there no collusion? No. Did you exonerate the president? No. And the Democrats did get many different forms of that. And so does that not meet your own threshold for success?

michael schmidt

Well, I under — now I feel like I’m being questioned.

michael barbaro

[LAUGHS] But seriously.

michael schmidt

In sort of looking back on that, I don’t think in the Trump era we’ve seen major shifts in people’s views of him when he’s been shown to lie and mislead the public. So I get that Mueller has more credibility than most, and it does show that the president had been misleading, but I’m not sure it’s that powerful to actually change enough minds to drive this in a different direction.

michael barbaro

So is there a version of this where the Democratic strategy, having not achieved the great moment that they needed to actually change public opinion, have had this backfire?

michael schmidt

It may backfire in the sense that they went to these great lengths, they put on this big show, and they didn’t walk away with anything major.

michael barbaro

And so the question becomes, why did you do it? Because this was your idea. This was your hearing.

michael schmidt

Well, no, no, no, no. Not just why did you do it, but why are you continuing to investigate it? So if Mueller came up here, you didn’t get any new revelations, the Republicans can stand there and say, well, Democrats, why are you continuing to investigate the president on this? Mueller has done his thing. His report is out. You could move ahead with impeachment if you want to, but politically you don’t, so what are you doing?

michael barbaro

Right. Either impeach or don’t impeach, and then let’s stop talking about this.

michael schmidt

Let’s not do sort of a silent impeachment, where we’re just trying to dredge up anything we can on the president, and we really don’t have the political will to go ahead and actually do it.

[music]

michael barbaro

Mike, thank you.

michael schmidt

Thanks for having me.

archived recording (adam schiff) Director Mueller, thank you again for being here today. This hearing is adjourned. archived recording (donald trump) The Democrats lost so big today. Their party is in shambles right now.

michael barbaro

After the hearings had ended, President Trump addressed reporters from the White House lawn, saying that Mueller’s testimony had been a disaster for Democrats and a vindication for him.

archived recording (donald trump) What he showed, more than anything else, is that this whole thing has been three years of embarrassment and waste of time for our country.

michael barbaro