By Charles Creitz | Fox News
House Republicans on the Judiciary and Intelligence committees will have a unique opportunity to question former Special Counsel Robert Mueller after Democrats pressed to have him come and testify, according to former independent counsel Ken Starr.
GOP lawmakers should delve into several topics about which their questions have gone largely unanswered, Starr claimed Friday on “Hannity.”
“This is going to be a great opportunity,” said Starr, the independent counsel for the Clinton-era Whitewater probe. “The Republicans are going to be on the spot. They are being given… a golden opportunity to get some questions answered that we all have.
DEAL STRUCK FOR MUELLER TO APPEAR, GIVE EXTENDED TESTIMONY BEFORE CONGRESS JULY 24
“I think Republicans will do well to drill into the report and to say such things as ‘the transition period proved that there were no connections between Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin, and the Trump organization and the Trump campaign,’.”
“‘Why couldn’t you say that much more directly?’,” Starr claimed Mueller should be asked.
He said Republicans should press Mueller as to why the report reads to some people as if the president was not given any “benefit of the doubt.”
“You really wrote this for Congress and you had no authority to do that,” Starr said of Mueller. “You were to write a confidential report to the attorney general of the United States explaining your prosecution decisions and your declination decisions.
“Mr. Mueller, some would call that an abuse of power.”
On Friday, Planning for former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s highly anticipated testimony was thrown into disarray as multiple sources said the hearing was delayed amid a “breakdown in negotiations” — yet others indicated it could still go forward next week as planned.
Late Friday, Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., announced that Mueller’s appearance before both committees had been pushed back one week, to July 24. Mueller is scheduled to testify before the Judiciary Committee for three hours beginning at 8:30 a.m. before appearing before the Intelligence Committee that afternoon.
Nadler and Schiff promised that “[a]ll members—Democrats and Republicans—of both committees will have a meaningful opportunity to question the Special Counsel in public, and the American people will finally have an opportunity to hear directly from Mr. Mueller about what his investigation uncovered.”
Fox News’ Brooke Singman and Chad Pergram contributed to this report.
