101 questions for special counsel Robert Mueller - Washington Examiner

Former special counsel Robert Mueller will finally testify in front of Congress tomorrow, and both Democrats and Republicans have a lot of questions for him.

Democrats will likely seek to emphasize contacts that Trump associates had with Russians and WikiLeaks, will try to drive a wedge between Attorney General William Barr's characterization of Mueller's report and Mueller's own thoughts on it, and will attempt to highlight the possible episodes of obstruction of justice by Trump that Mueller laid out.

Republicans, on the other hand, have said they will highlight what they see as the biased nature of his investigation, will push Mueller on whether he looked into the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation and the Department of Justice, and will critique Mueller for not doing more investigating of the dossier compiled by British ex-spy Christopher Steele that was used in FISA applications to target the Trump campaign.

Mueller will appear before the House Judiciary Committee at 8:30 a.m. and then will face the House Intelligence Committee at about noon.

Mueller made it clear in his brief press conference more than a month ago that he is a hesitant witness and that he plans to stick to the “four corners” of his report, and the Justice Department followed up last night by instructing him to limit his testimony to what has been made public in his 448-page report, and nothing beyond that. And now it appears that he'll be joined at the hearing by his longtime right-hand man Aaron Zebley, who will reportedly act both as Mueller's counsel and as an occasional witness.

The goal of Democrats is to make an American public that likely didn't read Mueller's 448-page report aware of at least some of the Trump campaign's shady-looking, if not illegal, dealings with foreign actors and other unsavory characters, and it is possible that they may at times simply ask Mueller to read some of the more damning passages from the report aloud. Democrats also believe that Attorney General William Barr misrepresented Mueller's findings with his initial four-page letter to Congress, and it is likely that they'll push Mueller to express displeasure with Barr's actions. And, with 2020 on their mind, Democrats will look to paint Trump in the worst light possible.

Republicans want to flip the script on the Democrats, pointing to what they believe are the biased actions of a Justice Department and an FBI out to get both candidate and then President Trump and highlighting what they see as the politicized nature of the investigation first under former FBI Director James Comey and then under Mueller himself. And Republicans will undoubtedly point to what they see as the kid-glove treatment that Hillary Clinton received during her email investigation versus the all-out nature of the federal investigation into Trump's ties to Russia.

Based on that, here is a sampling of 101 of the most likely questions that members of Congress will have ready for Mueller. Whether they'll get any new answers from Mueller is the biggest question of all.

The report itself

When did you know that there was no criminal coordination or conspiracy? If you knew early on, or before the 2018 midterm elections, why didn’t you make that known?

When did you conclude you wouldn’t make a decision on obstruction?

You didn’t charge Trump with obstruction and you cited the Office of Legal Counsel opinion stopping you from indicting a sitting president, but you also didn’t charge any other Trump associates with assisting Trump in any alleged obstruction efforts either. Does that mean no one else obstructed justice?

Who actually wrote the Mueller report? Were you the final decider on what made it in or was it a group decision? When was the report put together? Did everyone agree on the final draft or was there dissent?

Does the fact that you “did not establish” coordination or a conspiracy mean you did not find any evidence of coordination or a conspiracy? If you found evidence of a conspiracy or coordination, which parts of your report are evidence of it?

Why did you provide a conclusion on collusion but not on obstruction?

You write about “ efforts to curtail the Special Counsel’s investigation” but were any of those efforts actually successful? Were you ever curtailed in any way? Were any prosecutorial or investigative actions ever denied?

Do you believe that Trump removing you as special counsel would have definitively constituted obstruction?

Why did you settle for allowing Trump to submit his answers in writing instead of attempting to compel him into sitting for an interview?

Do you believe Trump was truthful?

If not for the Office of Legal Counsel guidelines, would you have charged Trump with any crime? Collusion? Obstruction? Anything else?

Do you believe Trump can be charged with crimes when he is no longer president?

Are the 10 instances of possible obstruction equally concerning to you?

Did anyone refuse to assist you or refuse to testify?

Your report says that there were “gaps” in your investigation. What were those?

How did you assemble your team? Why did you assemble the team that you did? Do you regret putting together a team of mostly Democrats?

Your investigation was overseen at various times by Rod Rosenstein, Matthew Whitaker, and William Barr. Did any of them take any action you thought was improper? If so, what?

President Trump said he considers your report to be a “complete and total exoneration.” You said that your report should not be seen as an exoneration. Do you believe it is a prosecutor’s job to exonerate someone?

In your press conference you said that "it would be unfair to potentially accuse somebody of a crime when there can be no court resolution of an actual charge.” What would you have done if you’d found evidence of a criminal conspiracy? Would you still have not accused Trump of committing a crime?

Is the Yahoo News story about the Russians planting the Seth Rich conspiracy theory true and, if so, why isn’t it in your report?

Why did you edit Trump lawyer John Dowd’s voicemail in your report?

Are you deferring to Congress to make these big determinations?

Do you think Trump has committed impeachable offenses?

Do you think Trump should be impeached?

The investigation

What agencies did you involve in your investigation?

Why did you end your investigation while possible targets such as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and former Trump adviser Roger Stone still have cases ongoing?

Did anyone pressure you to end the investigation?

What info did you ask for in your 13 requests to foreign countries and why?

Which foreign countries were you asking for info from?

Do you believe your team leaked during the course of the investigation? What did you do to stop those leaks?

The Justice Department recently suggested in a response to an ongoing FOIA lawsuit that your investigation may have resulted in up to 19 billion pages of records. How many pages of records did you actually produce in the course of your investigation?

You were granted 499 search-and-seizure warrants during your investigation: 82 between July 2017 and December 2017 and another 375 between January 2018 and June 2018. From July 2018 through the investigation’s end in March, only 42 more were requested. Why did the vast majority get issued in 2017 and the first half of 2018? Was the investigation already winding down by mid-2018?

Records indicate that Andrew Weissmann, considered by many Republicans to be highly partisan, helped make hiring decisions for your team and may have been in charge of the hiring decisions. Is this true? Why?

What is your relationship with Comey? Are you “best friends” as Trump has said?

How did you make use of the "Comey Memos" memorializing conversations with Trump that Comey leaked to the media in order to spark the appointment of a special counsel?

What are the redacted areas of Rosenstein’s scope memos from May 17, 2017, and his second memo from August 2, 2017? Why did the second memo come out two months into your investigation? Was the scope of the investigation ever modified or expanded again? Was there a third scope memo? Why is it still redacted?

Why wasn’t the Trump Tower meeting a conspiracy or coordination?

Did you investigate leaks from the Justice Department and the FBI about this investigation?

What was wrong with the BuzzFeed story earlier this year? Why did you decide to shoot that story down?

Why didn’t you shoot down more false stories than you did?

Did Rod Rosenstein have a conflict of interest overseeing the investigation since he’d helped fire Comey?

What did you know about convicted sex offender and accused child sex trafficker George Nader, and when did you know it? Why did you trust him as a key witness in your investigation? Did you allow him to travel or delay his prosecution because he was assisting with your case?

Mueller vs. Barr

Did Attorney General William Barr misrepresent your report in any way, and if so, how?

Barr said that he “personally felt [you] probably could’ve reached a decision” on obstruction of justice. Is Barr wrong?

What discussions did you have with Barr and Rosenstein before you submitted your report?

Barr’s first letter to Congress on March 22 stated that there were “no such instances” in which you were stopped from taking a specific course of action. Is that true?

Barr claimed that you were given the chance to look at his March 24, 2019, memo to Congress, but that you declined to do so. Why?

Barr said that your March 27 letter was “a bit snitty” and was “probably written by one of [your] staff people.” Your letter had said that Barr's memo “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of your report. Do you agree with Barr’s characterization? And was that letter indeed written by a staffer? If so, by who?

Did Barr mischaracterize any conclusions of your report in the letter he sent to Congress?

When Barr asked you if you thought anything in his summary letter was incorrect, is it true that you said no?

In your mind, was Barr supposed to be the decider on the issue of obstruction of justice or did you intend on leaving that up to Congress?

Origins of the Trump-Russia investigation

Did you investigate the relationship involving former Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, Steele, and the FBI?

Did you investigate the relationship involving Nellie Ohr (Bruce Ohr’s wife), Fusion GPS, Steele, and the FBI?

What role did John Brennan play in the initiation and conduct of the Trump-Russia investigation?

If the contacts between Trump associates and the Russians didn’t violate the law, did they harm our national security? Why or why not?

When you were appointed special counsel, what did you review? Have you seen the records showing when the Trump-Russia investigation was officially started? What do the records say?

What information was brought from Comey’s investigation into your investigation? Was your investigation a continuation of the FBI’s investigation or were other investigations spun off?

Which counterintelligence investigations were conducted and which are ongoing?

Did you look into the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation when you were appointed special counsel?

What was the origin of the Trump-Russia investigation, dubbed Crossfire Hurricane? Did the FBI’s involvement indeed start on July 31, 2016, because Australian diplomat Alexander Downer told the U.S. that George Papadopoulos claimed that the Russians had some sort of incriminating evidence against Hillary Clinton?

Do you believe the Trump-Russia investigation was properly predicated? Did officials such as former FBI Director James Comey and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe act properly?

What was the Justice Department or the FBI doing about Russian interference prior to July 31, 2016?

Did President Barack Obama do enough to combat the Russian interference that took place under his watch?

Did you have a hint that Trump was being investigated when you interviewed for the FBI job after Comey was fired?

What counterintelligence threats were uncovered by the investigation?

Were FISA warrants ever sought or obtained against Mike Flynn, Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos, or anyone else?

Did you ever look into who leaked information about the conversations between Mike Flynn and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak?

Why were text messages on the phones belonging to Peter Strzok and Lisa Page deleted?

Were you concerned when you saw Peter Strzok’s and Lisa Page’s text messages? Did you believe that they were biased? Did you investigate whether their biases had affected any Trump-Russia decision-making?

Why was Peter Strzok removed from your team? Whose decision was it?

Why were so many of the same people involved in the Clinton email investigation and the Trump-Russia investigation (even simultaneously for a period of time)?

Are you aware of whether President Obama was involved in any of the decisions related to the Trump-Russia investigation?

You were given the authority to look into “matters directly arising from the investigation.” Did that include the Steele dossier? Fusion GPS and the role that it played in the election? Hillary Clinton’s possible connections to foreign nations? Any third party candidates and their connections to any foreign countries?

Did you look into the fact that Fusion GPS was representing Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at the same time as it had hired Christopher Steele to work on the dossier? What conclusions did you come to about Veselnitskaya’s motivations at the Trump Tower meeting?

When did Trump himself come under investigation? Was it before or after Comey repeatedly told Trump that he wasn’t being looked at directly?

As the former head of the FBI, would you have included the Steele dossier in FISA applications and would you have approved those four FISA applications and renewals for submission to the FISA Court?

Should the FBI have told the FISA Court about the fact that Steele was being paid by the Clinton campaign?

Did you interview former State Department official Kathleen Kavalec about her interactions with Steele in 2016 and her doubts about the veracity of some of his information?

Did you attempt to interview the Russians who Steele told State Department official Kathleen Kavalec were his sources?

Did you use information from Steele’s dossier in your investigation?

Did you investigate the Steele dossier's claims?

Did you investigate whether the Steele dossier might itself contain Russian disinformation? Why or why not? What did you find?

Was the FISA Court ever given updates about any of your findings on Steele's dossier?

Do you think it’s appropriate for federal investigators to use unverified opposition research like they did?

When did you determine that Michael Cohen never went to Prague despite the dossier's claims?

What else in the dossier was investigated? What was disproven or proven? Why isn’t more in your report?

You reference it only briefly in the report, but do you believe that the “pee tape” is real? What efforts did you undertake to figure out whether it existed or not?

You didn’t end up charging Carter Page with any crimes. Why?

Why did you consider charging George Papadopoulos with FARA violations related to Israel?

Why do you believe that Manafort associate Konstantin Kilimnik and Maltese academic Joseph Mifsud have ties to Russian intelligence? Did either of them ever work for U.S. intelligence or Western intelligence as well?

Why wasn’t Mifsud charged with lying if you believed he lied to investigators? Why was he let go? Where is he now?

FBI investigators reportedly didn’t think Mike Flynn lied to them at first. Did something change their minds? What are your thoughts on this?

What was the role of Stefan Halper in the Trump-Russia investigation before you took over and what was his role while you were leading it?

What other confidential informants did the Justice Department use against Trump associates?

Why didn’t the FBI tell Trump that Russia was trying to infiltrate his campaign?

Do you agree with Barr that the FBI “spied” on the Trump campaign? Why or why not?

The future

What are your thoughts on Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s FISA abuse investigation?

What are your thoughts on the inquiry being conducted by Attorney General William Barr and U.S. Attorney John Durham?

What recommendations do you have for investigations such as this going forward? Do the special counsel regulations need to be changed? Does the Office of Legal Counsel opinion need to change?

Do you believe that any new legislation is needed to guard against foreign election interference in the future?

Would you conduct the investigation in the same way if you could do it over?

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