Veteran journalist Bob Woodward said Robert Mueller let President Trump off the hook in his report but suggested public perception could “change in a minute” when the former special counsel testifies before Congress on Wednesday.
At the end of a Washington Week panel discussion on PBS, the Washington Post associate editor and famed Watergate sleuth was asked the one thing he is looking to hear from Mueller.
“Something new, something concrete, some hard evidence. And you know, he made it clear in his report on the major issues Trump gets off for the moment,” Woodward said, adding, “Now, that can change in a minute.”
Mueller, who reluctantly agreed to testify publicly only after he was subpoenaed, will first take questions from Democrats and Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee at 8:30 a.m. for three hours. After a 30-minute break, the House Intelligence Committee will grill Mueller at noon for two hours.
Mueller’s report, released by the Justice Department with redactions in April, concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 election but did not establish that any members of the Trump campaign criminally conspired with the Russians in these efforts. Mueller did not reach a conclusion on obstruction of justice, citing DOJ policy against indicting a sitting president, but Attorney General William Barr and then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concluded there was insufficient evidence for such a crime in the summary the Justice Department released preceding the report.
Democrats argue Barr misled the public and that by laying out 10 instances of possible obstruction in his report, Mueller left it up to Congress to decide whether Trump obstructed justice. Although Mueller said in his only public statement on his report he would not stray from the findings of his report in his testimony, House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler said Democrats hope to get Mueller to divulge information that does not appear in the report.
“Hopefully we go a little further,” the New York Democrat said on MSNBC last week after acknowledging their main strategy will focus on getting Mueller to recite the findings of his 448-page report in front of a live audience.
Woodward, who is best known for his investigative reporting with Carl Bernstein that shed light on the Watergate scandal leading to President Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974, previously said believes Democrats will be hard-pressed if they pursue a “redo” of Mueller’s investigation.
During an “Extra” portion of Friday’s Washington Week, Woodward cast doubt on what Democrats could feasibly achieve in speaking to a reluctant witness such as Mueller. And even if Mueller reveals fresh information, Woodward, hearkening back to the Nixon tapes in the Watergate era, suggested Trump likely remains out of real trouble without concrete evidence.
But Woodward, who in late May let slip he found people Mueller did not interview, left open the possibility that tapes could exist.
“I keep — every time I interview someone I ask, ‘Do you have tapes?’ And I’m waiting. And I have not got a yes. But this is the world of surveillance. It is the culture of surveillance. So maybe there’s something out there. So keep asking,” Woodward said.
During an interview Tuesday on MSNBC, Woodward said he does not believe Trump used a secret taping system like Nixon had. However, Woodward noted that finding Nixon’s taping system “was kind of an accident” and told host Ari Melber that he is “looking for new witnesses” in his own investigation.
