democrats are approaching tomorrow s mueller hearing as a fact illuminating forum for voters who have not taken the time to read the mueller report and republicans seem to view tomorrow s mueller hearings the way they seem to view everything, a trump re-election rally. republican congressman matt gates will be questioning robert mueller in the judiciary committee hearing. he told the new york times that his goal for the mueller hearing is this. we are going to re-elect the president. joining our discussion now, john heilemann, national affairs analyst for nbc news and msnbc co-host and executive producer of showtime s the circus. john, when you listen to matt gates approach, that s a very different thing than what we heard from the two democratic members of congress. well, it certainly has the virtue of honesty, lawrence. yes.
and it s kind of a momentous matter here, lawrence, that we have the election or the selection of boris johnson within 24 hours of robert mueller going to the hill tomorrow to lay out in grave detail the way donald trump requested russian assistance, he received russian assistance, he welcomed russian assistance, he covered up russian assistance and then he rewarded russian assistance. and how did he reward russian assistance? in part by denigrating nato. in part by cheering on brexit. in part by cheering on the breakup of the european union. so here you have putin s handy work that will now be on full display on capitol hill tomorrow. and brian, it is such a powerful coincidence because robert mueller will be testifying, especially to the intelligence committee, about the ways in which russia does this. and they re very similar to what we saw in the united kingdom with the additional element of some ability to trace what appear to be russian financial contributions to the brexit cam
six? because there are up to 14 acts in which there s evidence of obstruction of justice. there s at least four acts where he says all the elements of obstruction of justice are met. when you did that stop me when i get there on the number of, the reason i chuckled is because that is the katie porter hearing style. i have seen you do exactly that kind of thing with cabinet members, with banking executives. you have a method in the way you kind of make the outcome inevitable in. the outcome of the hearings should be inettable. it should be the truth for the american people. there s a purpose to asking these questions. no matter the witness, i want to truth for the american people.
attack mode. president in effect threatening to fire them all publicly saying publicly i can fire them, i haven t fired them that, that sort of thing. then in the course of the investigation, white house counsel don mcgahn testifies to the special prosecutor that i was ordered to fire you and i was ordered to fire you twice, and here is what is not in the mueller report. what was robert mueller s reaction to that as a prosecutor? did he take any precautions? now that the threat of firing was so vivid, did that in any way affect the way he or his staff approached this work after knowing that the president tried to fire them? and if robert mueller sticks to the report, he will not answer a simple question like were you concerned or were any of your staff concerned about being fired by the president? well, i think you re right,
i try to frame the question in a way that will get us to the truth. the goal is the truth. that should be the goal i hope both colleagues bring to the table. mueller is not going to say anything that isn t in his helping the american people understand what are the basic conclusions out report, which is that director mueller d especially counsel mueller cannot exonerate the president. based on his investigation, he cannot exonerate him. and i would ask him to name each of the four counts of obstruction of justice. now, you are came out in