Mueller: I Don't Want to Testify Before Jerry Nadler and His Enormous Man-gunt

The conspiracy theorists who've been suggesting that AG Barr was blocking Mueller from testifying are wrong, yet again.

Manu Raju works at CNN -- or, let's agree, draws a paycheck from CNN -- to type up the Democrats' and Mueller team's (but I repeat myself) leaks:

Manu Raju

@mkraju

NEWS: Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team has expressed reticence to him testifying publicly in front of the House Judiciary Committee, according to sources familiar with the matter. His team has expressed that he does not want to appear political....

One option is to have him testify behind closed doors, but sources caution numerous options are being considered in the negotiations between the committee and the special counsel’s team. Nadler has called for public testimony

A twitter user commenting on this made a halfway decent speculation: Mueller may be essentially asking to be subpoenaed, so he can claim he resisted being "political" to the utmost. Then, having been subpoenaed, he can go in there and be suuuuuper political -- but hey, he was forced to, right?

If Nadler doesn't subpoena him, that's going to look pretty strange, given his threats and bluster -- and subpeona! -- to Don McGahn.

Meanwhile...

The Justice Department warned House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff if the panel moves forward with a contempt vote or other punishment against Attorney General William Barr, it will no longer work together on a deal that would allow members to view a less-redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller's report.

In a letter sent Tuesday to Schiff, D-Calif., from Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd, the Justice Department proposed a meeting this week with the House Intelligence panel’s senior staff to continue to search for a compromise in response to 12 requests made by the committee.

But that meeting won’t happen if the panel decides to punish Barr for failing to turn over the unredacted report, Boyd warned.

posted by Ace of Spades at 04:42 PM

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