Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, supports having special counsel Robert Mueller appear before Congress so lawmakers can ask the “dude” who led the Russia investigation questions themselves.
Although many Republicans are against Mueller testifying on Capitol Hill, Hurd said that “it’s time to have Mueller come to Congress” to shed light on his view of the report, in comparison to the interpretation from Attorney General William Barr.
“I do believe that this can settle things by actually — you know, we’re talking about a report — one dude’s opinion of a report written by another dude,” Hurd said during an interview with CNN’s John Berman Friday morning.
“Let’s have that dude who wrote the report come to Congress and talk about that,” Hurd said. “People get to ask him questions. Then we should be talking about this disinformation strategy and how to deal with it in the future.”
“You might be the first person who ever called Robert Mueller a dude,” Berman said in response.
“No disrespect to the Attorney General or Bob Mueller,” Hurd said.
Mueller’s Russia investigation wrapped up in March and did not conclude that there was sufficient evidence that there was a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin during the 2016 election. However, Mueller did not make a determination on obstruction of justice, and Barr said there was not sufficient evidence to prove an obstruction crime.
After Barr released a four-page summary of the report, Mueller wrote a letter to the attorney general claiming that it “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of the investigation. The letter was leaked late last month before Barr appeared in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
As a result, Democrats who want to investigate cases of obstruction of justice further have been pushing for Mueller to appear before them.
President Trump said over the weekend that Mueller shouldn’t testify in front of Congress, but said Thursday he would defer to Barr.
“I’m going to leave that up to our very great attorney general. He’ll make a decision on that,” Trump said.
