mueller testimony
Watch Robert Mueller's congressional testimony live
Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's highly-anticipated congressional testimony is about to begin.
Three months after the release of the public version of his report examining Russian interference in the 2016 election, Mueller will testify before the House Judiciary Committee at 8:30 a.m. EST. He'll subsequently testify before the House Intelligence Committee at noon. Both hearings will be public and can be streamed online.
Mueller in his report did not establish a criminal conspiracy between President Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia and did not conclude whether Trump criminally obstructed justice. In a May press conference, Mueller indicated that he did not wish to testify before Congress, feeling it would not be "appropriate" to speak about the report further and that were he to testify, he would not offer any new information not already in the report. Among the questions Democrats are likely to ask include whether Trump would have faced charges were he a private citizen.
But although Democrats don't necessarily expect new revelations from the testimony, they have wanted Mueller to testify in hopes he can bring to life what they see as the most damning aspects of his report. "We want to get these facts out so the American people know what we are dealing with and hear it from Mueller himself," House Judiciary Chair Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said on Tuesday.
Republicans, meanwhile, have criticized the hearing as a waste of time, with Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) telling Politico it's a "political spectacle" and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) telling CNN that "I've heard all I need to hear from Mueller." Republicans are also likely to probe what they see as biases within Mueller's team. A White House official told The Atlantic they're expecting the hearing to be either "a dud" or "a Dumpster fire," with nothing in between.
Watch the Mueller hearing live via The Washington Post below. Brendan Morrow