Special Counsel Robert Mueller is set to testify before two House committees on July 17.
Chair of the House Judiciary committee, Jerrold Nadler, announced the hearings in a joint statement with House Intelligence Committee Chair, Adam Schiff in a tweet Tuesday evening.
According to the statement, Mueller has agreed to testify before both the House Judiciary Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on July 17.
“Americans have demanded to hear directly from the Special Counsel so they can understand what he and his team examined, uncovered, and determined about Russia’s attack on our democracy, the Trump campaign’s acceptance and use of that help, and President Trump and his associates’ obstruction of the investigation into that attack,” the joint statement reads.
The statement says Mueller will testify in open session.
“Russia attacked our democracy to help Trump win,” Schiff tweeted Tuesday evening. “Trump welcomed and used that help. As Mueller said, that should concern every American. And now, every American will get to hear directly from Mueller.”
WATCH: Schiff confirms Robert Mueller will testify before two House committees
Mueller’s report was completed in March, ending a 22-month investigation into ties between Russia and U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign team.
A redacted version of the report was made public on April 18.
The report did not make a conclusion on whether Trump had committed obstruction of justice, but did not exonerate him, either.
Following the release of the report, Trump tweeted,“No Collusion – No Obstruction!”
In a subsequent press conference, Trump told reporters he was “having a good day.”
On May 29, Mueller announced he was officially closing the special investigation into Russian interference, and resigned as special counsel.
“We are formally closing the special counsel’s office,” Mueller said. “As well, I’m resigning to return to private practice.”
During the statement, Mueller also detailed two sections of the report. In the first section, he said there was evidence that there were numerous instances of Russia trying to meddle in the election.
The second section focused on obstruction of justice.
He also explained a long-standing Justice Department policy does not allow a president to be charged with a crime while in office.
“Charging the president with a crime is not an option we could consider,” he said, saying it would be unfair to accuse someone of a crime when there could be no court resolution of the charge.
During his statement, Mueller said he would not testify before Congress.
“The report is my testimony,” he said.
The committees have been in negotiations with Mueller for more than two months about his testimony.
Schiff and Nadler said they issued the subpoenas Tuesday, and Mueller agreed to testify pursuant to those subpoenas.
In a letter to Mueller accompanying the subpoenas, the committee chairmen said “the American public deserves to hear directly from you about your investigation and conclusions.”
Schiff said there will be two hearings “back to back,” one for each committee, and they will also meet with Mueller’s staff in closed session afterward.
“There’s a great deal that we have to talk about, the American people I think want to know far more about this investigation, about the parallel counterintelligence investigation, about some of the prosecutorial decisions that were made, about other witnesses not mentioned in the report,” Schiff told reporters after the announcement.
“So we have a great many questions that we will have prepared for him.”
-With files from Rebecca Joseph and the Associated Press.
Comments