![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/APP-072319-Mueller.jpg\")
And the Republicans are mad because, “Wait a minute. We wanted to ask him a bunch of questions about why he ignored the Steele dossier and all this other stuff,” and the Republicans are kind of ticked that the Trump DOJ is limiting them.<\/p>\nRUSH: There are some Republicans mad at the budget deal. There are also some Republicans very, very upset today over the Department of Justice sending a letter to Mueller reminding him what he cannot say. That he cannot go beyond the report. That he should not contradict himself or any of that.<\/p>\n
And the Republicans are mad because, “Wait a minute. We wanted to ask him a bunch of questions about why he ignored the Steele dossier and all this other stuff,” and the Republicans are kind of ticked that the Trump DOJ is limiting them.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: Robert J. Mueller the 14th, Esquire, has just asked to bring somebody along with him to his testimony tomorrow, but I didn\u2019t get a chance to catch who during the commercial break, but I\u2019ll find that out and give you details.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: Now, the big news today, the big news today, headline: \u201cJustice Department Warns Mueller to Stay on Script at Showdown Hearing with Congress.\u201d This is not what happened. Jerry Nadler, the chairman of the House committee, one of the two committees here that\u2019s gonna be investigating and interrogating Mueller, “This is terrible. This is Trump demanding that Mueller not be able to testify fully. This is showing that they know and they are afraid of Mueller.”<\/p>\n
The Attorney General William Barr was just on television. The attorney general just said that Robert Mueller asked that this letter be written and sent to Congress. Mueller asked for the letter to be written. Now, the headline that you have all seen and that you have seen people reacting to today, “Justice Department Warns Mueller to Stay on Script at Showdown Hearing.” That is the Washington Times headline.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/APP-070919-William-Barr.jpg\")
That is not what happened. Robert Mueller requested that this letter be sent because he doesn\u2019t really want to testify. He doesn\u2019t want any part of this. This is my opinion, my humble estimation, he doesn\u2019t want any part of this. He does not want to have to answer anything beyond what is in that report. He can\u2019t. He\u2019s already specified that there isn\u2019t any more.<\/p>\n
The report says everything that can be said. There was no collusion. He couldn\u2019t come to a conclusion on obstruction. There\u2019s nothing new to add. He wants the Justice Department to send a letter. He wanted the letter to be written basically to give him backup when he stays within the confines of the report when it comes to his answer.<\/p>\n
Now, the latest news is that Mueller has asked for a council, a lawyer, a member of his team to be sworn in so that he can testify as well. It\u2019s a last minute request to have his deputy, his name is Aaron Zebley sworn in tomorrow in case Mueller can\u2019t answer some questions and needs some help.<\/p>\n
Now, there are any number of ways of interpreting this. I would interpret this as something I believe has been the case from the get-go, that Mueller was a name on the masthead. He\u2019s almost “of counsel,” which means in a law firm, “of counsel” means your name is on the letterhead and you\u2019re there to attract clients and customers, but you don\u2019t do work anymore. Your career is behind you. You\u2019ve worked your whole life, you\u2019re so “of counsel.” Your name is on the letterhead, you\u2019re a rainmaker.<\/p>\n
He was a figurehead. Mueller was to give this investigation the imprimatur of character and dignity and honor, given his great reputation as a swamp dweller. The real investigators and the real experts in this are the people who were not gonna be testifying, led by Andrew Weissmann and any of the other 14 Hillary Clinton supporters, donors, and fundraisers which served as Mueller\u2019s investigators.<\/p>\n
Mueller needs somebody there with him to answer details \u2019cause I don\u2019t think Mueller did much real work here. He may have sat in on some interviews, may have conducted a few himself. But this is the way Washington works. By the way, this is not isolated. You know how many of these high flying, high priced private sector lawyers who get hired to run blue ribbon investigations, special counsel investigations, do you know how many of them really do any work?<\/p>\n
This is classic. This is a great illustration, in fact, of what high rank in the establishment gets you. You devote your life to the establishment, you devote your life to the club, you do the work when you\u2019re young, you do all the work everybody else does when you\u2019re young. You rise through the ranks and as you age and gain more experience, you become a figurehead, you become a big name on the letterhead that attracts people. In the case of law firms, high paying clients.<\/p>\n
“I want to go to that firm, see, Robert Mueller works that well. I want to go to that firm,” take your pick, “Leon Jaworski works there. I want to go to that firm. Richard Ben-Veniste works there.” When these guys haven\u2019t done any work in years. But they get paid. Oh, do they get paid. They get to charge whatever hourly rate they want to invent. And then they get to say they were at work X-number of hours a day, and they may have been there, but they don\u2019t do — this is one of the perks.<\/p>\n
One of the perks is being paid handsomely on the basis of your reputation not on your current work output. This is standard operating procedure. It\u2019s one of the ways elitist organizations function. It\u2019s just the way of the world, just the way it\u2019s always been. It\u2019s one of the reasons there\u2019s such resentment for the rich in many cases because this aspect of it is understood.<\/p>\n
So I believe Mueller was a figurehead and he doesn\u2019t want to take any questions at his press conference that he did a couple months ago. It\u2019s too risky. He did a prepared statement and that was it. There was no ad-libbing. There was no off the book. There was no off the prompter. There was no off script.<\/p>\n
Now, there\u2019s some conflicting news with this. Mark Meadows, Republican member of Congress, North Carolina, tweeted that House Democrats have been holding mock hearings, practicing five-minute interview clips, setting up a social media war room for the Mueller hearing on the collusion case that closed four months ago. I have heard that the Democrats are meeting in private, have been meeting with Mueller.<\/p>\n
Now, I don\u2019t know how true this is. I\u2019m sure some of it is. I don\u2019t know if they\u2019ve been meeting with Mueller. But the point is Democrats have been meeting in advance trying to create sound bite moments whereas a member would ask a predetermined question and Mueller would give a predetermined answer, and they\u2019re trying to structure the answer so that it falls within the mandate that Mueller not go outside the report but say something in such a way that will allow the media to report that Mueller let fly a bombshell, that Mueller said something not in the report, that Mueller added.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/APP-061119-Nadler-002.jpg\")
The Democrats are trying to set this circumstance — and a number of them — up with their rehearsals and with their attempt to stage things. This is a recipe for one of the biggest backfires, \u2019cause these people are not smart enough to pull this off. Nadler and Schiff aren\u2019t. Nadler and Schiff combined are not smart enough to beat a hamster playing Jeopardy. And they\u2019re gonna try to pull something like this off, it\u2019s gonna be really, really tricky out there.<\/p>\n
Now let\u2019s go to the meat and potatoes of this. Mueller asks for the letter. William Barr, the attorney general, is putting the lie to the Washington Times story, the rest of the media. Mueller asked for this Department of Justice letter. The way the Times reports it: \u201cThe Justice Department warned former special counsel Robert Mueller on Monday not to stray beyond the four corners of his already-released report when he comes to Capitol Hill this week to testify.<\/p>\n
\u201cAssociate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer, in a letter to Mr. Mueller, said that means any decisions Mr. Mueller made, or information he uncovered, that he didn\u2019t include in his report will be out of bounds for the hearing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mueller asked for this letter. Mueller asked Barr, he asked his buddy. He asked the DOJ to write this letter to give him cover with Nadler and with Schiff. Don\u2019t misunderstand. This does not mean Mueller\u2019s become a Trump fan. It means Mueller can\u2019t go outside the report. He has testified to it. He has put his name on it! It is what it is. It can\u2019t be changed. And it\u2019s explicit.<\/p>\n
There was no collusion. And we couldn\u2019t conclude whether the president obstructed justice. This report was written for one reason: to be picked up by Congress and to be used in impeachment hearings. The report cannot.<\/p>\n
Now, one of the areas of the report that is being focused on here is — and you\u2019ve heard this — whether or not Mueller would have asked for Trump to be indicted if it weren\u2019t for these guidelines that you cannot indict a sitting president. This is going to be one of the areas that Democrats are going to explore.<\/p>\n
In fact, I think it\u2019s gonna be the area they\u2019re going to try to make news. Now, in helping me make this point, I have here a column that my good buddy Andy McCarthy wrote and submitted to the Fox News website. And his headline: \u201cMueller\u2019s Testimony Will Not Give Democrats What They Crave. Can They Handle It?<\/a>\u201d McCarthy, letter-of-the-law guy. He is a former prosecutor, Southern District of New York, SDNY. He is a full-fledged, top to bottom letter-of-the-law guy. He believes Mueller can\u2019t as a matter of law maintain his reputation. He cannot say anything not in this report. He cannot say anything that is in the report differently than how it\u2019s stated in the report, that he\u2019s got no maneuverability here.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/McCarthy-Piece.jpg\")
<\/a>Andy believes that Mueller cannot and will not give any of these Democrats what they crave. The Democrats want Mueller to say that he would have charged Trump with obstruction of justice if it weren\u2019t for these guidelines saying a sitting president may not be indicted. Mueller cannot say that.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/APP-050619-Comey.jpg\")
<\/a>The point is, Mueller knew there was no collusion on May 17th. Yet what did Mueller do? He put the country through a two-year hellhole investigation. And after that, after two years and all the money and all the subpoenas and all the interviews, Mueller declined to charge Trump with obstruction. He cleared Trump on collusion but did not answer after two years, did not answer the question, “Did Trump obstruct justice firing Comey?”<\/p>\n