Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have sent a letter to Republican committee Chair Lindsey Graham to insist on the importance of bringing Robert Mueller before their committee. To demonstrate the importance, the Democratic senators have included a list of 60 questions that can only be answered by the special counsel’s appearance.
While not everyone in the Senate seems to be on the same “case closed” page that Mitch McConnell is selling, there is no one more dedicated to the cause of getting back to the important issue of “but her emails” than Lindsey Graham. On May 1, Graham made it clear that he wasn’t willing to call Mueller to testify, despite questions that emerged at a hearing with Attorney General William Barr. Graham offered to send a letter to Mueller to resolve one issue, but insisted repeatedly that the whole investigation was “over,” so there was no reason to bring Mueller in.
But the letter—which includes the signatures of 2020 presidential candidates Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, and Kamala Harris—shows there’s more to be learned from Mueller than can possibly be addressed in a single-page memo, including:
- To what degree was the investigation able to determine why Paul Manafort volunteered to work for the Trump campaign for free, and whether he discussed the possibility of joining the Trump campaign team with foreign nationals?
- To what degree was the investigation able to determine whether members of the campaign other than Rick Gates were aware that internal campaign strategy and polling data were being shared with Ukrainian Konstantin Kilimnik?
- To what degree did the investigation examine the role of Cambridge Analytica,
AggregateIQ (AIQ), or SCL Group in the 2016 election? Did the investigation examine
the possibility that U.S. election or Trump campaign information was shared with Russia
through these entities?
- To what degree was the investigation able to determine whether the Trump Tower
Moscow project was part of an effort to gain influence over Donald Trump?
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The Democratic senators also have questions on the obstruction side—including questions that go directly to Mueller’s intent when providing the report to Barr.
- When Attorney General Barr testified before the Judiciary Committee on May 1, 2019, he said that he "did not understand exactly why the special counsel was not reaching a decision" on whether the president obstructed justice, and that "he didn't want to try to put words in Bob Mueller's mouth." He also said that he was "surprised" by Mueller’s decision. What did Mueller tell Barr regarding why he chose not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment?
- Did Mueller discuss with Barr what his decision would have been if he had made a
traditional prosecutorial judgment?
Even this list of questions barely scratches the surface, but it does show that Mueller has information that only he can provide—because he’s the only one who knows all aspects of the investigation, including what happened when he discussed the report with Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
Here’s one more question that’s not on the list: Lindsey Graham supposedly sent his letter to Robert Mueller on May 1, citing Barr’s testimony that “you told him in a phone call that you did not challenge the accuracy of the Attorney General’s summary of your report’s principal conclusions, but rather you wanted more of the report, particularly the executive summaries concerning obstruction of justice, to be released promptly. In particular, Attorney General Barr testified that you believed media coverage of your investigation was unfair without the public release of those summaries.”
Since then Graham hasn’t said what Mueller replied. Or if he has replied. And if he hasn’t … why not?