Looking Ahead to Muller’s Testimony

We are hours away from Robert Muller testifying before the House intelligence and judiciary committees. Even though Muller doesn’t want to testify, and he pledges to stay within the confines of his report, tomorrow’s testimony is critical.

Statements calling for yes/no Answers on Obstruction of Justice

1. Your view is that the Office of Legal Counsel opinions stating a sitting president from being indicted prevented you from even considering the possibility of indicting Donald Trump for any crimes he may have committed.
2. You did not exonerate Donald trump of obstructing justice.
3. If you found evidence that Donald Trump didn’t obstruct justice you would have said so in your report.
4. There doesn’t need to be an underlying crime for someone to obstruct justice.
5. You don’t have to successfully obstruct justice to be guilty of obstructing justice.
6. Articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton dealt with obstruction of justice.
7. You found 10 incidents that you believed could be classified as obstruction of justice on the part of Donald Trump.
8. In June of 2017 Donald Trump ordered Don McGahn to call Rod Rosenstein and tell him to fire you.
9. McGahn refused to carry out the president’s order and was prepared to resign before doing so.
10. In January of 2018, The New York Times wrote about Donald Trump’s efforts to have McGahn fire you.
11. Reacting to the story, Donald Trump ordered Don McGahn to deny the New York Times story.
12. Don McGahn refused to deny the story because it was true.
13. In June of 2017, Donald Trump told Corey Lewandowski to let Jeff Sessions know the scope of your investigation should be limited to interference in the election. Lewandowski didn’t deliver the message to Sessions.
14. In July of 2017, Donald Trump told Corey Lewandowski to threaten to fire Sessions if you weren’t fired.
15. Donald Trump refused to answer any questions about obstruction of justice.

Statements Requiring yes/no Answers on collusion

1. There is no federal crime of collusion.
2. You found there was insufficient evidence to charge anyone associated with the trump campaign with criminal conspiracy.
3. Primarily, you didn’t find criminal conspiracy because in order to prove criminal conspiracy you need to prove everyone involved in the conspiracy knew they were involved in a criminal conspiracy and took steps to further the conspiracy.
4. In some instances, members of the Trump campaign were receptive to Russian assistance.
5. Defining collusion as a secret cooperation to cheat or deceive others is fair.
6. Several members of the Trump campaign had collectively dozens of contacts with Russians about the election.
7. Russia intensionally interfered in the 2016 election.
8. Several members of the Trump campaign have pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about their contacts with Russia during the election cycle.
9. Donald Trump refused to be interviewed about the election.
10. Donald Trump answered written questions about the election.
11. You determined Donald Trump’s written answers to be “inadequate.”
12. More than 30 times Donald Trump responded in writing with some form of he didn’t remember.

Final Thoughts

Sadly, too many Democrats will grandstand and ask dum questions. Every Republican will discuss nonsense that has no basis in reality. So, it will be hard to get the kind of answeres the above questions would elicit from Mueller and educate the American public about what happened. Still, I believe enough truth will come out to make many more Americans support impeachment. I won’t say it will do enough to bring Nancy Pelosi and Democratic leadership along, but I’m expecting to fully support impeachment after Muller’s testimony.