Special counsel Robert Mueller’s won’t appear in front of the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees as planned Wednesday.
“It appears the hearing will be rescheduled. The final details are being ironed out now,” an aide to a senior House Judiciary Committee member told the Washington Examiner.
A number of sources with knowledge of the behind-the-scenes negotiations told the Washington Examiner this week that there were complaints about the format of the hearing and the limited length of time that individual members would be allowed to ask questions.
Mueller will reportedly testify to the committees on July 24 instead.
Democratic Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler of New York and Democratic Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff of California made it official with a joint statement Friday evening.
“We are pleased to announce that Special Counsel Mueller will provide additional public testimony when he appears before our committees. At his request, we have agreed to postpone the hearing for one week, until July 24, at which time Mr. Mueller will appear in public before the House Judiciary Committee followed by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence,” they said.
“The House Judiciary Committee will convene on July 24 at 8:30am with Special Counsel Mueller testifying in public for three hours,” Nadler and Schiff added. “After a brief break, the House Intelligence Committee will convene for additional public testimony beginning at 12:00pm. All members—Democrats and Republicans—of both committees will have a meaningful opportunity to question the Special Counsel in public, and the American people will finally have an opportunity to hear directly from Mr. Mueller about what his investigation uncovered.”
The top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee applauded the move.
“I appreciate news the chairman has taken seriously the concerns Judiciary Republicans raised this week. The new format will allow all Judiciary Republicans to question the special counsel on July 24,” Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia said in a brief statement.
Earlier this week, Attorney General William Barr seemed to offer Mueller a way out of testifying, saying the Justice Department would back him if he didn’t want to be part of what Barr called a public spectacle.
Nadler and Schiff had announced in June that Mueller had agreed to testify, a stark contrast with the position Mueller took at his only public appearance since the end of his investigation.
Mueller’s report concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 election but did not establish that any members of the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians in these efforts. Mueller did not reach a conclusion on obstruction of justice, but Barr and then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concluded that obstruction did not occur.
