Robert Mueller and House Democrats just called an audible
This morning Palmer Report told you that Congresswoman Maxine Waters was hinting that House Democrats had a secret plan to get Robert Mueller to talk about more than just what’s in his redacted Report. Waters was careful not to provide any information about this strategy. But now Mueller and House Democrats are indeed calling an audible – and House Republicans are already howling.
Republican Congressman Jim Jordan tweeted this afternoon that Robert Mueller is planning to have his chief of staff Aaron Zebley testify alongside him. Politico then confirmed that this is in fact the case. Jordan expressed outrage over this last minute change of format, which gives away that this is a good thing for House Democrats.
It’s not yet clear precisely how this will change things. Robert Mueller already publicly stated two months ago that if he were called to testify, he would only be willing to discuss what’s in his report. Yesterday Donald Trump’s DOJ told Mueller that it expected him to stick to that. But for all we know, Mueller’s chief of staff – who was surely a party to most of what Mueller and his team said and did during their two year investigation into Trump’s crimes – may be in a better position to testify about things that go beyond what’s in the Mueller report.
Donald Trump and his DOJ are invoking an imaginary form of privilege to begin with, so there is no legal way for them to stop Mueller’s chief of staff from discussing whatever he sees fit. So is this the secret plan that Maxine Waters was talking about, or is there more to come?
