he referred this matter to congress. we have taken up that referral. and it s fully important in our view that we have an opportunity to flesh out what the russians did, how they did it, what the role of the trump campaign personnel were, what were the counterintelligence issues, what was the process used to handle the counterintelligence concerns, where are the findings. all of these questions and a great many more the american people should have the opportunity to pose through their representatives to mueller himself. we never felt it was sufficient to rely simply on a written report or a ten-minute statement without the ability to follow up with questions. because we the public have had so little visibility into the way that mueller works and how he and his team have approached their duties, and obviously there s been a lot of controversy over the way they chose to approach their investigation to present their findings, i think it s always been a little bit fuzzy for us outside th
does it strike you as important that mueller was so resistant to this and that ultimately this subpoena was what it took to compel him to do this rather than him agreeing to it voluntarily? yeah, you know, i can t really get into his head. he s obviously an experienced person with testifying on capitol hill, so i don t think he is in any way intimidated by it, but, you know, as a prosecutor, i sometimes participated in press conferences to announce charges. you sometimes will get questions and there s a lot of challenge in making sure that you are saying only what s in the four corners of the charging document, not disclosing things that are classified or, you know, that relates to ongoing investigations. there is also in this case the additional political football aspect of it all, and i think robert mueller is very resistant to being a political pawn, and i m sure to some extent he will be made one. so for all of those reasons i can understand his reluctance. when it comes to mat
dismiss our case based on our supposed lack of standing, the emoluments clause itself, the courts rejected them, and today it rejected the president s effort to delay, to stonewall, to slow-walk and our hope is that the court of appeals will agree with the district court which ruled today in our favor. it s a really historic ruling and i think that we need to keep the wheels of justice moving. senator richard blumenthal, thank you very much for joining us on this breaking news tonight. really appreciate it. thank you. and we re joined now by eugene robinson, associate editor and pulitzer prize winning columnist for the washington post. he s an msnbc analyst. harry litman is with us, former u.s. assistant attorney general under the obama administration. and barbara mcquade. gene robinson, i think we all know what we ll be doing on july 17th. if you judge it by the nine minutes of robert mueller
testify, why he is resistant to speaking at all, as he put it, beyond the four corners of the report that he and his staff put out in writing. can you shed any light on that for us and tell us what these negotiations have been like? i ve seen you express dissatisfaction or impatience or frustration that it s taken this long to arrange his testimony. well, you know, i will let the special counsel speak for himself and their office speak for themselves, but i think that what they have represented to us is that they view themselves as prosecutors, and prosecutors don t normally talk outside of the trial or outside of the indictment. but let s face it, this is not a traditional prosecutorial case. and what s more, bill barr has felt more than free as the attorney general to speak well beyond the mueller report, and if he is able to speak beyond the four corners of the mueller report then so too should bob mueller feel free to do so. so we have never concurred with that judgement, but i t
resistant to speaking at all, as he put it, beyond the four corners of the report that he and his staff put out in writing. can you shed any light on that for us and tell us what these negotiations have been like? i ve seen you express dissatisfaction or impatience or frustration that it s taken this long to arrange his testimony. well, you know, i will let the special counsel speak for himself and their office speak for themselves, but i think that what they have represented to us is that they view themselves as prosecutors, and prosecutors don t normally talk outside of the trial or outside of the indictment, but let s face it, this is not a traditional prosecutorial case. and what s more, bill barr has felt more than free as the attorney general to speak well beyond the mueller report, and if he is able to speak beyond the four corners of the mueller report, then so too should bob mueller feel free so to do so. so we have never concurred with that judgement, but i think