Adam Schiff: Biggest Problem With Mueller Report Was It ‘Wasn’t Brought To Life Through Public Hearings’

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said that Robert Mueller’s report on former President Donald Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia failed to turn public opinion against Trump because Congress did not hold enough public hearings about it.

MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle told Rep. Schiff that his work on the January 6 commission “just takes me back to the definitive Mueller report that was filled with so many things that didn’t actually resonate or make their way to the American people. Why do you think it will be different?”

Schiff replied, “The Mueller report didn’t change many attitudes, because it really wasn’t brought to life through public hearings. I think that was one of the failings.”

In fact, Hollywood actors literally brought the report to life in a 10-act play that featured them reading Mueller’s transcripts: John Lithgow played President Trump on stage, alongside Annette Bening, Alfre Woodard, Kyra Sedgwick, Kevin Kline, Joel Grey, and Ben McKenzie. “If you still can’t get enough or if you haven’t finished your own copy of the Mueller Report, well, you can head to Washington in the next few weeks for an 11-hour long reading of volume two. Also there are plans for a graphic novel,” reported CNN’s Alexandra Field.

Experts said the greatest problem with the Mueller report was that it failed to deliver evidence of collusion between the Trump-led Republican Party and Vladimir Putin’s Russia. “The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities,” the report concluded.

“We did have obviously two hearings with Bob Mueller himself,” Schiff conceded on Thursday, “but what we really needed was I think to bring forward the actual witnesses to those events.”

Congressional hearings at which Robert Mueller appeared mentally inert and uninformed about the report, which was putatively his own work, did not help the prosecution’s case. President Donald Trump thanked the Democrats for holding the spectacle publicly. Obama aide David Axelrod called Mueller’s performance “very, very painful,” adding that the special counsel “does not appear as sharp as he was.” As Daily Wire’s Ryan Saavedra reported:

Leftist Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe tweeted: “Much as I hate to say it, this morning’s hearing was a disaster. Far from breathing life into his damning report, the tired Robert Mueller sucked the life out of it. The effort to save democracy and the rule of law from this lawless president has been set back, not advanced.”

MSNBC’s Jeremy Bash complained that Mueller “sucked the life out” of the Russia report and seriously “set back” efforts to hold Trump “accountable” — meaning impeachment.

Bash added that Mueller was “evasive,” “lost at times,” and was “very ineffective” at defending “his own work.”

Schiff, who led the charge to tie former President Trump to the Kremlin, is now a member of the congressional committee investigating the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Ruhle interrupted Schiff’s remarks, which occurred after President Joe Biden’s speech about the riot last January 6, to return to Biden speaking with a gaggle of reporters.

“I did not want to turn it into a contemporary political battle between me and the president,” said the president.

Q: “Why didn’t you mention President Trump by name?”

President Biden: “I did not want to turn it into a contemporary political battle between me and the president. It’s way beyond that. It’s way beyond that.” pic.twitter.com/5INA64BvoD

— CSPAN (@cspan) January 6, 2022

The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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