No one raised their hands when Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., asked a panel of witnesses to acknowledge if they personally knew whether anything in the Mueller report was true or false, during a Thursday hearing in the House Judiciary Committee.
“If you have personal knowledge regarding the truth or falsity of a single material fact [from the Mueller report], just raise your hand,” Gaetz said. “So, the record can reflect no witnesses have raised their hand. No witnesses have any personal knowledge regarding a single fact in the report. No witnesses last week had personal knowledge … This hearing should not be entitled ‘Lessons from the Mueller Report,’ it should be entitled ‘Hot Takes from the Mueller Report,’ because what we’re getting are people who have no knowledge of the facts, no information as to the underlying information. They’re just reading it and offering their analysis, their hot takes.”
Gaetz vented his frustration with House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., for not calling Mueller himself to testify in front of Congress, instead calling people like John Dean from the Nixon administration. Gaetz joked that perhaps the committee would call someone from the 1868 impeachment of President Andrew Johnson. Nadler tried to argue that the White House was asserting executive privilege over witnesses, preventing them from testifying, but Gaetz argued that Mueller, who authored the report, was the one person the White House couldn’t do that with.
Gaetz then attempted to steer the conversation from the Mueller report to reforming asylum laws, much to the chagrin of his fellow committee members. One representative interrupted, saying the questions about the border crisis had nothing to do with the Mueller report, leading to Gaetz raising his voice and emphasize the lack of knowledge from the witnesses.
“I wish it was about the Mueller report. I really wish it was,” Gaetz said. “But they don’t know anything about the Mueller report. This is a total farce, and it’s no wonder witnesses don’t want to come here and testify for this committee.”
Members of the committee questioned the panel of witnesses for approximately three hours about the Mueller report and the Russia investigation.
