The US is looking for a hero – but Robert Mueller doesn't want to be one

Mueller’s testimony this week was hotly anticipated by Democrats and certain Republicans, but it’s doubtful it will alter much unless Nancy Pelosi changes her mind

This week has been a big one on both sides of the Atlantic: hours after Boris Johnson was signed in as the UK’s new prime minister and Theresa May faced Jeremy Corbyn in her final Prime Minister’s Questions, Robert Mueller began his final testimony before US congress. Ever since his report became available to the American public, the former special counsel has been a controversial figure: his carefully worded dossier did not claim “no obstruction, no collusion” but it was summarised as such by Donald Trump in those exact words on Twitter, and by attorney general William Barr in his own official summary.

There are, to put it lightly, some mixed feelings about Barr here in the US. Molly Jong-Fast wrote for our Voices section this week that he has become Trump’s own Ray Cohn (Cohn famously helped blacklist scores of people during McCarthyism, and was seen as an “attack dog” for the administration.)

During Mueller’s testimony on Wednesday, Representative Steve Cohen asked Mueller if the attorney general is supposed to serve the American people or if he is the “consigliere” of the president, a mafia reference which made waves in the newsroom. Mueller, of course, responded that the attorney general is supposed to be the representative of the American people – but nobody was supposed to care about the answer.

Americans on both sides of the spectrum – “never Trump” Republicans, who believe that the president is doing untold damage to their party, such as our columnist Jay Caruso, and Democrats like our other regular contributor Max Burns, who for obvious reasons oppose the man currently tweeting from the Oval Office – have hoped for a long time that Mueller will be their saviour. He’s an unlikely candidate for the job, quiet and cautious as he is.

This exchange from Wednesday between him and Democrat Representative Cedric Richmond is textbook Mueller, for example:

Richmond: So it's fair to say the President tried to protect himself by asking staff to falsify records relevant to an ongoing investigation?

Mueller: I would say that's generally a summary.

Richmond: Would you say that that [means] the President tried to hamper the investigation by asking staff to falsify records relevant to your investigation?

Mueller: I am just going to have to refer you to the report if I could for the review of that episode.

The truth is that Mueller’s nuanced remarks, both on paper and in spoken testimony, were never intended to provide a big political victory for those who oppose Trump, just as they were never supposed to have been spun as a political victory for those who support him. Mueller is not a political man. But he may well have already provided enough information for impeachment proceedings in his original report, and Democrats would do well to delve further into it rather than to rely on soundbites from this week’s testimony if that’s their aim.

Whether those impeachment proceedings would be successful – and whether Nancy Pelosi is right to drag her heels about beginning them, fearful of dividing the country even more and re-energising the president’s base ahead of the 2020 election – is a discussion for another day.

Yours,

Holly Baxter

US comment editor