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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy the Mueller Hearings Were So Alarming
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/why-the-mueller-hearings-were-so-alarminghttps://media.newyorker.com/photos/5d38e7a1d94dcf0008a9fc01/master/w_1454,c_limit/Cassidy--Mueller.jpg
Mark Meadows and other Republicans who observed Robert Muellers testimony appeared to be united behind Donald Trump.Photograph by Bill Clark / CQ Roll Call / ZUMA
By John CassidyJuly 24, 2019
For the past two and a half years of Donald Trumps Presidency, I have consoled myself with the argument that, despite all the chaos and narcissism and racial incitement and norm-shattering, the American system of government is holding itself together. When Trump attempted to introduce a ban on Muslims entering the country and sought to add a citizenship question to the census, the courts restrained him. When he railed at nato and loyal allies like Germanys Angela Merkel, other members of his Administration issued quiet reassurances that it was just bluster. When the American people had the chance to issue a verdict on Trumps first two years in office, they turned the House of Representatives over to the opposition party.
All of this was reassuring. But, while watching what happened on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, when Robert Mueller, the former special counsel, testified before two House committees, I struggled to contain a rising sense of dread about where the country is heading. With Republicans united behind the President, Democrats uncertain about how to proceed, and Mueller reluctant to the last to come straight out and say that the President committed impeachable offenses, it looks like Trumps blitzkrieg tactics of demonizing anyone who challenges him, terrorizing potential dissidents on his own side, and relentlessly spouting propaganda over social media may have worked. If so, he will have recorded a historic victory over the bedrock American principles of congressional oversight and equality before the law.
The morning session was largely devoted to Volume 2 of Muellers report, in which he relates ten instances of Trump seeking to interfere with the Russia investigation. Sitting before them, the G.O.P. members of the House Judiciary Committee had a seventy-four-year-old registered Republican and decorated hero of the Vietnam War, who subsequently spent decades as a public prosecutor, was appointed to the position of F.B.I. director by George W. Bush, in 2001, and served twelve years in that post. Yet some of the Republican members of the Committee treated their distinguished witness with thinly disguised contempt.
Louie Gohmert, of Texas, who has made a career of scaremongering, gay-bashing, and Islamophobia, began his questioning by entering into the congressional record a screed he authored titled Robert Mueller: Unmasked. Matt Gaetz, of Florida, sneered at the former special counsel as he sought, unsuccessfully, to get him to comment on the conspiracy theory that the allegations against Trump in Christopher Steeles Russia dossier were part of a Russian government disinformation campaign. Ohios Jim Jordan threw his arms in the air and mocked Mueller for his refusal to answer questions about Joseph Mifsud, the mysterious Maltese professor who allegedly told George Papadopoulos, a Trump campaign aide, that the Russians had damaging material on Hillary Clinton. John Ratcliffe, another Texan, asked why Mueller bothered to write his report at all, given the Justice Department guidelines that say a sitting President cant be indicted on criminal charges. Wisconsins Jim Sensenbrenner went further, questioning whether Mueller should have even carried out the investigation, which he described as fishing.
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