Democrats Need to Reset the Trump Investigation After Mueller Testifies
Robert Mueller will finally be testifying before Congress about his report, and the portrait it paints of a president systematically disregarding the law. In the months since the report’s release, Democrats have not effectively used the levers available to them to investigate President Trump or brought the full scope of his wrongdoing to the attention of the nation. The House needs to reset its investigation after Mueller testifies, taking a page from prior congressional responses to presidential wrongdoing.
Most of the blame for stymieing Congress’s investigative efforts properly resides with Trump and his administration, primarily Attorney General William Barr, who baldly lied about Mueller’s findings and then joined with the White House in defying congressional efforts to obtain access to evidence and witnesses.
Yet it should hardly have come as a surprise to legislators that a president with contempt for the Constitution would defy oversight by a Democratic Congress. And while lawmakers are taking wholly appropriate steps in the courts to enforce their subpoenas, they have yet to otherwise implement an effective and coordinated strategy to respond to Trump’s stonewalling, including by cogently informing the nation about the nature and scope of Trump’s misconduct.