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The Memo: Mueller's stumbles distract from substance | TheHill

posted onJuly 25, 2019
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Article snippet: ADVERTISEMENT President Trump and his supporters pounced instantly. Trump sardonically tweeted his “thanks” to the Democrats for bringing the former special counsel before them. Later, speaking at the White House, Trump told reporters, “We had a very good day today.”But some of the points that Mueller enunciated were seriously problematic for the president.Mueller began the day agreeing with House Judiciary Committee Chairman MORE, a former senior adviser to President Obama, wrote: “This is delicate to say, but Mueller, whom I deeply respect, has not publicly testified before Congress in at least six years. And he does not appear as sharp as he was then.”But Mueller did rally to his own defense at other times. On questions of bias, he asserted that during his whole career in law enforcement, “I have not had occasion, once, to ask somebody about their political affiliation.”As for the report itself he said, “I don’t think you’ve reviewed a report that is as thorough, as fair, as consistent as the report that we have in front of us.”By Wednesday evening, however, the same old question hung over Mueller’s testimony: What does it change?Mueller has always enjoyed much higher approval ratings from Democrats than Republicans — though a Pew Research poll released on Tuesday suggested his support among GOP-leaning voters had increased, perhaps because his report was not as damning as Democrats had hoped.Still, much of the reaction on Wednesday fell along politically tr... Link to the full article to read more

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