July 24, 2019

Mueller reports

00:19:00

Summary

Podcast Episode Summary

The podcast episode, hosted by Andrew Prokop, discusses the testimony of former special counsel Robert Mueller before Congress. The main topic of the episode is the Mueller report and its findings on obstruction of justice and Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Key Points:

The Democrats' strategy in questioning Mueller was to focus on the big picture of obstruction of justice and Russian interference, and then delve into specific episodes of potential obstruction outlined in the Mueller report.
The Republicans, on the other hand, attacked Mueller's investigation and its findings, questioning the impartiality of Mueller's team and the origins of the investigation.
Mueller's testimony was cautious and did not go beyond the findings of the Mueller report, which some people argued made him seem shaky or unauthoritative.
The episode also discusses the current state of the impeachment debate within the Democratic Party, with some members supporting an impeachment inquiry based on the Mueller report's findings, while others oppose it due to concerns about strategy and effectiveness.

Participants:

Andrew Prokop, senior politics correspondent, Vox
Robert Mueller, former special counsel

The Mueller report's findings on obstruction of justice and Russian interference remain a contentious issue, with Democrats and Republicans continuing to disagree on their significance and implications.
The impeachment debate within the Democratic Party is ongoing, with some members supporting an impeachment inquiry based on the Mueller report's findings, while others oppose it due to concerns about strategy and effectiveness.
The episode suggests that the Mueller report's findings may not have had a significant impact on public opinion or the impeachment debate, with some people arguing that the report's findings are not effectively communicated to the American public.

Transcript

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Sean Rameswaram: Welcome back to Today Explained. I'm Sean Rameswaram.

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Sean Rameswaram: Today, we're talking about Robert Mueller's testimony before Congress. Andrew Prokop, senior politics correspondent at Vox, is here to break it down for us.

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Andrew Prokop: Thanks for having me, Sean.

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Sean Rameswaram: So, let's start with the basics. For those who don't know, what's the main point of Mueller's testimony today?

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Andrew Prokop: Well, Mueller testified before the House Judiciary Committee, and the main point was to clarify the findings of his report. Specifically, Chairman Jerry Nadler of the House Judiciary Committee wanted to make clear that Mueller's report did not exonerate President Trump on obstruction of justice.

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Andrew Prokop: Nadler started off by focusing on the big picture, and he quoted Mueller directly from the report, saying that if they had confidence that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, they would have said so.

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Andrew Prokop: But Mueller's report actually said that they were unable to reach a judgment on obstruction of justice because of the Justice Department's policy that a sitting president cannot be indicted.

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Andrew Prokop: So, the Democrats' strategy was to start with the big picture on obstruction and then discuss in more detail some of the episodes of potential obstruction that Mueller outlined in his report.

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Andrew Prokop: For instance, Trump ordering Don McGahn, the White House counsel, to fire Mueller himself.

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Andrew Prokop: And the Democrats essentially read passages of Mueller's report back to Mueller and said, "Is this accurate?" And Mueller very briefly responded, "Yes."

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Andrew Prokop: Did the president refuse a request to be interviewed by you and your team?

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Andrew Prokop: Yes.

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Andrew Prokop: And is it true that you tried for more than a year to secure an interview with the president?

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Andrew Prokop: Yes.

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Andrew Prokop: And is it true that you and your team advised the president's lawyer that an interview with the president is vital to our investigation?

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Andrew Prokop: Yes.

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Andrew Prokop: So, the Democrats were in kind of a tough spot because Mueller had made clear in advance that his testimony was going to stick very closely to the report and would not go beyond it.

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Andrew Prokop: So, no, I wouldn't say it was a particularly effective strategy at making this pop for members of the public who may not have been so closely following it.

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Andrew Prokop: Did the Republicans have a cohesive strategy?

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Andrew Prokop: So, Republicans were attacking using all sorts of arguments that Trump and conservative media and Trump's strongest defenders in Congress have been saying for some time.

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Andrew Prokop: Efforts to discredit the origins of the investigation. Efforts to call into question the impartiality of Mueller's team members.

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Andrew Prokop: Efforts to question his decision making around obstruction of justice and so on.

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Andrew Prokop: Just basically attack after attack after attack.

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Andrew Prokop: And if somebody knows they did not conspire with anybody from Russia to affect the election, and they see the big justice department with people that hate that person coming after him, and he knows he's innocent, what he's doing is not obstructing justice.

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Andrew Prokop: He is pursuing justice.

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Andrew Prokop: And the fact that you ran it out two years means you perpetuated injustice.

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Sean Rameswaram: [pause] Okay, let's take a break. We'll be right back.

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[Break music plays]

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Sean Rameswaram: Welcome back to Today Explained. I'm Sean Rameswaram.

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Sean Rameswaram: Andrew Prokop is still with us. We're talking about Robert Mueller's testimony before Congress.

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Andrew Prokop: Thanks for having me back, Sean.

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Sean Rameswaram: So, did the Republicans' strategy work?

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Andrew Prokop: I think the real strategy was to create clips of Republican congressmen attacking Mueller and advancing these arguments that could then be played back on Fox News all day.

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Andrew Prokop: You hired a bunch of people that did not like the president.

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Andrew Prokop: On the week of June 9, who did Russian lawyer Veselnitskaya meet with more frequently?

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Andrew Prokop: The Trump campaign or Glenn Simpson, who is functionally acting as an operative for the Democratic National Committee?

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Andrew Prokop: You charge Rick Gates for false statements.

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Andrew Prokop: You charge Paul Manafort for false statements.

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Andrew Prokop: You charge Michael Cohen with false statements.

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Andrew Prokop: You charge Michael Flynn, a three-star general, with false statements.

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Andrew Prokop: But the guy who puts the country through this whole saga, he lies, and you guys don't charge him.

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Andrew Prokop: And I'm curious as to why.

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Andrew Prokop: Well, I can't get into it.

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Andrew Prokop: And it's obvious, I think, that we can't get into charging decisions.

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Sean Rameswaram: Did the impeachment question kind of die out there in Congress today, or can Democrats still make the case?

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Andrew Prokop: I don't think so.

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Andrew Prokop: I think Democrats, you know, they have been telling themselves that the report was very long.

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Andrew Prokop: And though they believe its findings to be damning, they don't think that it was effectively communicated to the American public.

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Andrew Prokop: And they had hoped that these hearings with the spectacle of Mueller's testimony would be a way to change that, to get these facts of what Trump did, which they think is quite outrageous, in front of more people and to get more people angry about it.

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Andrew Prokop: And I don't think that's really what happened today.

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Andrew Prokop: I think that things pretty quickly devolved into the traditional partisan camps.

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Andrew Prokop: And the people who already believed the facts looked damning will continue to believe that.

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Andrew Prokop: But the key in doing anything about it in Congress impeachment Democrats have said is to try to win over Republicans.

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Sean Rameswaram: That's after the break on Today Explained.

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Sean Rameswaram: Welcome back from your honeymoon, Kaináza Maria. Sean. Yeah, thank you.

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Sean Rameswaram: Where did you go?

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Kaináza Maria: We went to Portugal, Spain, and Paris.

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Sean Rameswaram: Oh my gosh. Yeah.

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Sean Rameswaram: Portugal's always been one of my dreams.

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