Here’s a puzzle: Imagine that you are a member of Congress who, under rules seemingly designed to preclude effective questioning, had exactly five minutes to interview Robert Mueller on national television. What would you ask him?

Let’s make the puzzle more difficult by adding to it some other known elements of reality. Mueller does not want to testify at all and has said pretty clearly that he will not go beyond the four corners of his report in doing so: “[T]he report is my testimony. I would not provide information beyond that which is already public in any appearance before Congress.” Mueller is also likely to be grumpy when you question him. And who can blame him? You would be grumpy too if you were being subjected to hours of unwanted hectoring by your colleagues, many of whom are not very bright, will not have done their homework, and will want to yell at the man and ask him things that would be wildly inappropriate for him to answer.

But you are that rare thing: a diligent member of Congress who wants to use your time with Mueller to bring out important findings and nuances of the Mueller report. What do you do?

Here are a few principles for questioning Mueller under these circumstances, along with a set of questions I would ask him if I were a member of Congress:

First, you get to develop only one point. Design your questions to bring out one—and only one—major idea. If you try for more, you will deliver less.

Second, ask him only yes-or-no questions. You don’t have a lot of time. Use it to build up to the point you want to make. Ask short, crisp questions that require short, crisp answers that allow you to move on to the next question.

Third, stay within the four corners of the report. If you ask Mueller for evidence he did not include, he will not give it: He has been very clear that he does not intend to share additional information beyond what is set out in the report. If you ask him for interpretations he did not offer when he had the chance to write more than 400 pages of his interpretations, he will decline. If you ask him about his interactions with Attorney General William Barr, he will likely demur. By contrast, the closer you hew to asking him to read his own words, the likelier he is to cooperate. The trick is to use questions in this latter form to develop a single bigger idea over the course of a short stretch of time.

Fourth, ask him questions to which you know the answer. This is not an investigative hearing. It is an exercise in political and legal theater, and you are trying to provide a compelling elucidation of Mueller’s work and findings. Ask only questions you know he can answer and whose answers you know will reasonably contribute to the thread you are developing.

What might this look like in practice? Here’s one example. Reading this sequence of questions aloud and allowing time for Mueller’s yes-or-no answers, it clocks in at right around five minutes: