Robert Mueller's spokesman Jim Popkin on Monday said he didn’t know yet who would be joining the former special counsel at the hearing | Carolyn Kaster/AP File Photo Legal Mueller scrambles hearing by tapping top deputy as counsel Republicans called the plan a 'stunt' that could be a breach of House rules.

Robert Mueller’s top deputy will appear alongside him for his highly anticipated testimony on Wednesday, according to congressional aides familiar with the preparations, a last-minute curveball that came despite the Justice Department's demand that Mueller’s deputies refrain from testifying.

Aaron Zebley, Mueller’s longtime right-hand man, will appear as Mueller’s counsel when he testifies before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning; but he will be formally sworn in as a witness for the House Intelligence Committee’s hearing with the former special counsel later that afternoon, an aide said.


Republicans said any decision to allow Zebley to accompany Mueller as a sworn-in witness would represent a breach of their tentative negotiations. Georgia Rep. Doug Collins, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, called the prospect a “stunt” and said it could “jeopardize whether tomorrow's hearing complies with the rules of the House.”

“If Democrats believe it is the special counsel’s responsibility to testify to his report, they have no ground for outsourcing that duty at the expense of our committee’s integrity,” Collins said.

No Republicans on the Intelligence Committee, however, joined the public outcry.

Mueller spokesman Jim Popkin on Tuesday confirmed Zebley’s appearance for Mueller’s five hours of combined testimony before the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees.

“Aaron Zebley was the deputy special counsel and had day-to-day oversight of the investigations conducted by the office,” Popkin said. “He will accompany special counsel Mueller to the Wednesday hearings, as was discussed with the committees more than a week ago.”

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), chairman of the Intelligence Committee, cautioned that Mueller — not Zebley — would be answering lawmakers’ questions.

“Our intention is that Mueller do the testifying and not have someone else do it for him,” Schiff said. “Now, there may be questions that one of his team is better situated to answer of a technical nature. But we don't want a hearing with Bob Mueller converted to a hearing with someone else.”

Both Zebley and James Quarles, another Mueller deputy, initially were expected to testify before the Judiciary and Intelligence committees behind closed doors, but those sessions were called off amid opposition from Attorney General William Barr.

Barr has said that Mueller’s deputies should not testify, and he suggested that the Justice Department would move to block them from appearing if the committees issued subpoenas to compel their testimony. It is unclear whether the Justice Department will try to disrupt Wednesday’s arrangement.

The move threatens to further inflame tensions between the Justice Department and House Democrats. Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler on Tuesday blasted President Donald Trump’s Justice Department as “incredibly arrogant” for instructing Mueller to limit the scope of his testimony Wednesday before the Judiciary and Intelligence panels.

But the New York Democrat predicted that the Justice Department’s Monday directive would not affect Wednesday’s highly anticipated pair of hearings with the former special counsel.

“I don't think it's much of an impediment, simply because Bob Mueller had indicated repeatedly that he was going to do exactly that,” Nadler said on CNN. “I think it's incredibly arrogant of the department to try to instruct him as to what to say. It's a part of the ongoing cover-up by the administration to keep information away from the American people, but I think that it's not going to have a real impact.”

And in a letter to Mueller late Tuesday night, Schiff said the Trump administration was seeking to “obstruct the authorized oversight activity and legitimate investigations of the committee.”

“The committee rejects the limitations that the Department of Justice has attempted to place on your testimony on the eve of your appearance before our committee,” Schiff added.

Mueller has stated that his 448-page report “is my testimony” and that he does not intend to speak about topics that were not already made public, presenting Democrats with a challenge when Mueller appears before the House Judiciary and Intelligence panels.

And on Monday, the Justice Department told Mueller that his testimony “must remain within the boundaries of your public report” because the president has asserted executive privilege over the investigation’s underlying evidence, POLITICO first reported.

Nadler said on Tuesday that Democratic lawmakers have “been operating under the assumption that he'll do essentially what he said — he'll stay more or less within the bounds of the report.” But the chairman also said Mueller “does not have to comply” with the Justice Department directives.

“He doesn't work for them,” Nadler said, “and that letter asks things that are beyond the power of the agency to ask even if he still worked for them.”

Despite the Justice Department’s letter to Mueller, it is unlikely the department will insist on having a lawyer in the room during Mueller’s testimony to lodge objections to certain questions — essentially relying on Mueller to self-police his remarks. Mueller is known to strictly adhere to Justice Department guidelines, and Democrats do not expect him to deviate from that practice,

In May, Trump asserted executive privilege over Mueller’s entire report and underlying materials. The move came after the Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena for the unredacted report and all evidence underpinning it, and the Justice Department’s defiance of that subpoena led the panel to hold Barr in contempt of Congress.

Democrats are eager to ask Mueller several questions about his investigation and his legal conclusions, including whether he would have charged Trump with obstruction of justice if he were not the president — a reference to Justice Department policy that prohibits the indictment of a sitting president. While Mueller is unlikely to answer that question directly, Democrats say there are other ways to illuminate Mueller’s decision not to formally accuse the president of committing a crime.

The Judiciary Committee is expected to focus on five specific episodes of potential obstruction of justice — ones that, according to Mueller, met all three elements required for an obstruction charge.

Judiciary Committee Democrats held a mock hearing on Tuesday afternoon to prepare for their questioning of Mueller. They also rehearsed how they would respond to efforts by Republicans to discredit Mueller’s investigation or lodge procedural objections that could delay the hearing.

House Democrats are planning an all-out messaging blitz over the next few days, blanketing social media with excerpts of Mueller’s report and real-time clips from the hearing. It’s an effort to amplify any of the material Mueller gives them and line it up with the most damaging details of his report.

Democrats also have put together a five-page set of talking points for their colleagues who aren’t as deeply immersed in the Mueller report, distilling Mueller’s dense findings into a digestible summary they can use to help spread the caucus-wide message.

Darren Samuelsohn, Maya King and Quint Forgey contributed to this report.

