Robert Mueller Fears He’ll Be ‘Trashed By Republicans,’ May Never Testify To Congress, Democratic Rep Says

Russia investigation special counsel Robert Mueller turned in his report on the investigation’s findings on March 22, almost two months ago, but the 74-year-old has yet to say a single public word about the report, the investigation, or for that matter, any topic at all. Mueller remains in the special counsel’s job even though his investigation in concluded, as journalist Scott Stedman has confirmed via Twitter

The closest Mueller has come to speaking came when an NBC News reporter attempted to interview him after an Easter Sunday church service. But Mueller simply told the reporter, “No comment,” and drove away, as The Inquisitr reported.

Mueller had been expected to testify on May 15, but that date came and went without an appearance by the special counsel. Because he remains in his job with no set date for when he will step down, he remains a subordinate of Attorney General William Barr. But Barr this week denied that he had secretly blocked Mueller from testifying, according to a report by The Hill.

In a Twitter post earlier in the week, Donald Trump wrote the following.

“Bob Mueller should not testify. No redos for the Dems!” Trump said.

Whether Trump’s tweet had any influence on Mueller is unclear. The special counsel’s reluctance to face public accountability for his investigation remains a mystery to both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, The Hill reported.

But one Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, one of the committees that has expressed interest in hearing testimony from Mueller, says that she may have the answer to the mystery. Mueller, says California Representative Jackie Speier, is simply afraid to face the inevitable political attacks from Republican committee members.

“He doesn’t want to be trashed by the Republicans,” Speier told The Hill. “Does anyone want their reputation dragged through the mud falsely? He can handle his own, but they’ll ask questions like ‘Why didn’t you look at this, and why didn’t you look at that?’ I mean, talk about a thankless job.”

While Republicans say that they do not object to Mueller’s testifying, they also say they plan to grill him not about his findings regarding collusion between the 2016 Trump presidential campaign and Russia, but about the origins of the Russia investigation itself, a question that has become mired in conspiracy theories promoted by Republicans, including by Barr himself, as The New York Times has reported.

New York Representative Jerrold Nadler, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, has been negotiating with Mueller about the special counsel’s potential testimony, but Nadler now says that Mueller will likely not testify until sometime in June, according to Politico.