Radio talk show host Mike Gallagher said former special counsel Robert Mueller failed to give what the Democrats wanted during his testimony at Capitol Hill on July 24.
“It’s been a big week for the Trump administration quite frankly because I think everybody was sort of holding their breath to find out if Mueller was going to, you know, release any bombshells in his testimony,” Gallagher told The Epoch Times after the hearing. “And he fell flat.”
“I mean his testimony has been described even by Chris Wallace of Fox News as a ‘disaster’—not only a disaster for Democrats but a disaster for Mueller himself. I mean this is a guy who is widely admired and respected by many on both sides of the aisle. And his reputation took a beating today,” he continued.
“And so good news for President Trump, not so good for the Democrats who thought maybe they'd be able to fuel the fires of impeachment because there was nothing there today.”
Since the report was released in April, Democrats have increased their investigations and subpoenas in hopes of gathering information that could be used to prepare for an impeachment proceeding. Mueller was subpoenaed to appear before Congress to testify about his report last month by Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).
“I was stunned at how little Mueller knew about what was in his own report. At one point he was being questioned by Congressman Jim Jordan about one of the aspects of the investigation and Mr. Mueller said, ‘well I can’t answer that.’ And Congressman Jordan said, ‘but you already did answer it,’” the radio host said.
“In other words, Mueller was trying to say I can’t answer things because of pending investigations that he already revealed in the report. So it was peculiar, it was surreal, and it was a very bad day for the Democrats, but a decidedly great day for President Trump and for those of us who support the president and hope that he will prevail,” he added.
Like Gallagher, other analysts and lawmakers also made similar observations about Mueller’s testimony performance.
“The more this hearing goes on, the more it becomes painfully clear that not only did Bob Mueller not write his own report—he was barely involved or in control of it at all. You know who was? His team of Democrats. This was a resistance-driven partisan witch hunt all along,” Chairman of the House Freedom Caucus Mark Meadows (R-S.C.) wrote on Twitter reacting to the hearing.
“This is remarkable. Mueller can’t answer key questions, seems unaware of basic information, and admitted he denied exoneration of Trump over a standard that doesn’t exist. No one needs to discredit this process. Team Mueller and House Democrats are discrediting it by themselves,” Meadows wrote in a separate post.
“Given his poor memory, sluggishness, and lack of familiarity with his own Report, we now have more insight into why Mueller allowed his 2-year investigation to spiral out of control and devolve into absurdity,” he said.
“I thought got to the crux of it by saying where did you get the authority or feel it was necessary to have a non-exoneration of the president,” Gallagher said. “Prosecutors don’t do that. They say there’s a crime or there’s not a crime.”
“Mueller seems to say there’s no crime, we can find no basis of a crime but we didn’t exonerate him either. If we could have we would have. And Congressman Ratcliffe said where did that come from and honestly Mueller just stammered, he stuttered, he had no explanation, he barely managed a quick, ‘well this was a unique circumstance.’”
