Top aide to accompany Mueller at witness table
WASHINGTON — Robert Mueller’s longtime righthand aide will appear beside him at the witness table during today’s hearing with the House Judiciary Committee to assist as needed as the former special counsel answers questions about his investigation, people familiar with the hearing said.
The Judiciary Committee signed off on the unusual arrangement after earlier rejecting Mueller’s last-minute request that the aide, Aaron Zebley, be sworn in as a witness alongside him. If Democrats had agreed, then lawmakers could have questioned Zebley directly, potentially upending carefully laid plans by Democrats and Republicans over how to use their scant time with Mueller.
Instead, as a counsel to Mueller, Zebley will not be under oath or allowed to answer lawmakers’ queries. But he can confer privately with Mueller if the former special counsel needs assistance or guidance about how to respond.
Trump complained Tuesday night about Zeb
ley’s presence, calling him a “Never Trumper” and tweeting: “What a disgrace to our system. Never heard of this before. VERY UNFAIR, SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED.”
It is not uncommon for government witnesses to take aides to congressional hearings for that purpose, though in most cases the aides sit behind, rather than next to, the witnesses. Mueller is being asked to account for two years’ worth of investigative details uncovered by investigators and to do so while avoiding the disclosure of nonpublic information.
It was unclear whether Mueller had made a similar request to the House Intelligence Committee, the panel holding the second of two hearings today at which Mueller is scheduled to testify.
Jim Popkin, a spokesman for Mueller, said Tuesday that Zebley “will accompany special counsel Mueller to the Wednesday hearings, as was discussed with the committees more than a week ago.”
The congressional officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private negotiations, did not specify whether Mueller or his team explained the request.
Zebley has worked closely with Mueller for years. He worked alongside Mueller during the 22-month investigation, served as his chief of staff when Mueller was FBI director and followed him into private practice at the WilmerHale law firm. He filled a similar role in the special counsel’s office, coordinating the team and serving as a go-between with the Justice Department.
Popkin identified Zebley as the investigation’s “deputy special counsel” and said he “had day-to-day oversight of the investigations conducted by the office.”
The two panels had previously expected to talk to Zebley and another former member of the special counsel’s team, James Quarles, in private sessions after the public hearings. But those meetings were canceled after the Justice Department objected.
Republicans earlier decried the possibility that Zebley could appear in public as a witness.
Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said the last-minute addition of a witness could violate House rules. He called on Democrats to reject the request.
“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,” he said.
DEMOCRATS’ QUESTIONS
Mueller has said his testimony will stick to what was in his 448-page report.
On Monday, the Justice Department sent a letter to Mueller asking him not to stray beyond the report. The letter, which was sent in response to a request from Mueller for information about limitations or potential privilege issues, gives him a formal directive to point to as he faces questions.
Still, Democrats insist they just want Mueller to speak the words he wrote in the report released in April.
“For many Americans, just learning what’s in the report will be a revelation,” said House Intelligence Committee Chairman
Adam Schiff, D-Calif. “And what the impact of that will be on the Congress or what the impact of that on the country, I don’t know.”
Schiff said Democrats will be combating Trump’s insistence that the report found “no collusion” and “no obstruction.”
According to aides, Democrats on the judiciary panel plan to focus on Mueller’s investigation into obstruction of justice, which concluded that the president could not be exonerated. Attorney General William Barr and former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said after reviewing Mueller’s report that the evidence on obstruction was not sufficient to support a criminal charge.
The Democrats plan to point to a handful of episodes reviewed by Mueller, including Trump’s directions to White House counsel Donald McGahn to have Mueller removed and, once that was made public, orders from Trump to McGahn to deny it happened.
Democrats also plan to focus on meetings Trump had with former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski in which the Republican president directed Lewandowski to persuade then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to limit Mueller’s investigation.
The Democratic aides, who requested anonymity to discuss the preparations, said they believe those episodes are clear examples of obstruction of justice and are easy for the public to understand. To prepare, the judiciary panel aides held a mock hearing with lawmakers Tuesday afternoon.
Democratic members of the intelligence panel, which will question Mueller second, will mostly inquire about his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and about Russian contacts with the Trump campaign. Mueller said there wasn’t enough evidence to establish a conspiracy between Trump’s campaign and Russia.
Republicans, on the other hand, are expected to focus in part on the origins of the Russia investigation, as well as what they see as evidence of potential bias in the FBI’s handling of the probe.
WRAY’S TESTIMONY
Meanwhile, FBI Director Christopher Wray, in an appearance Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, repeatedly declined to answer specific questions about Mueller’s findings. He said he would leave those questions to Mueller.
Wray was willing to address other law enforcement subjects — such as describing China as the biggest national security threat to the U.S.
A number of Republicans on the committee, including the chairman, Sen. Lindsey Graham, asked Wray about the origins of the Russia investigation. The South Carolina Republican has vowed to investigate how the Russia inquiry was started.
Wray would not provide details about the two probes into the origins of the Russia investigation — one being conducted by the Justice Department’s inspector general and another by U.S. Attorney John Durham, who was appointed by the attorney general to examine the surveillance methods used during the investigation — other than to say the FBI was fully cooperating with both inquiries.
Some Democrats focused their questions on the independence of the FBI and on Wray’s relationship with Trump.
Asked whether anyone at the White House or the Justice Department — including Trump and Barr — asked Wray to open, alter or close an investigation, Wray responded that he couldn’t think of any situation in which he was asked to close an investigation or do anything inappropriate.
“I am committed to making sure the FBI does all of its work by the book, utterly without partisan interference,” Wray said.