Analysis of Mueller’s Congressional Hearing

Mueller’s Congressional Hearing

Former Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III testified before Congress after two years of near-total silence. Our reporters provided context and analysis during the hearing.

  1. I wrote a story yesterday on the latest developments in that effort.

  2. Trump Sues New York and Congress to Shield His State Tax Returns
  3. We are now back to Nunes, to close things out for the Republicans. He begins by thanking Mueller for his long service to the country.

  4. He passes on additional questioning. So now Chairman Schiff.

  5. Mueller is about to cap an astonishing career in government. He was a Marine, a longtime prosecutor, and he transformed the F.B.I. post-9/11. But I’m thinking now about when he interrupted a steady rise in law in the ‘90s — in midlife — to become a homicide prosecutor here in Washington. He had a cushy job at a white-collar law firm and was an assistant attorney general before that. But he wanted to solve murder cases. He would go to crime scenes and do interviews. He liked examining bullet casings, he once said. He goes down as one of the most complicated yet unknown public figures in American life. I’m ready for a memoir!

  6. Nunes said that Mueller came of his own “free will” to testify. In fact, he was subpoenaed.

  7. Schiff has been talking for a bit of time now.

  8. He is trying to make one last stab at various motives Trump may have had for his conduct.

  9. Schiff is now wrapping up. We are about done, folks.

  10. Noah, the chatter on Twitter about Mueller has not been kind. And it has come from quarters as far left as Michael Moore. I am not sure how this will seem as a final chapter in Mueller’s public life after a lengthy and distinguished career of service.

  11. I don’t think this is what Mueller wanted as the final chapter.

  12. Schiff sums up the Mueller report as a document that “tells a disturbing tale of a massive intervention in our election” by Russia and a campaign so desperate to win that it was “willing to accept the help of a foreign power.”

  13. Schiff touching one last time on impeachment: “You would not tell us whether the president should be impeached, nor did we ask you.” He says it is up to the House to make that judgment on its own.

  14. The chairman is running through unasked questions now. This has been a long hearing.

  15. Perhaps Schiff realizes that the House Democrats’ strategy of hiding behind Mueller and hoping he would tell them what to do failed.

  16. I wonder if you all agree with me, but it felt like this afternoon hearing was much less effective for Republicans and more so for Democrats. They painted an urgent picture of a president and the aides around him as a risk to the nation.

  17. Mueller is now moving toward the exit.

  18. Nick, I agree that the afternoon was better for the Democrats.

  19. And with that, folks, seven hours almost to the minute, we are done.

  20. We want to thank you all for reading along with us today and hope you will continue to follow our ongoing coverage of today’s hearings at nytimes.com.