so i think simple questions are important. then i think two questions that go beyond simple are important as well, which is the we know that mueller s by the book. so he wants to stick to the four corners of the report. but the book has changed because after he turned his report in, barr said, oh, you could have actually told the american people did mr. trump commit a crime. and if, you know, now that barr is saying that s permissible for mueller to have done, i think barr i think mueller should be asked that question by congress and should answer that question because barr is saying that s fair game to answer, mueller. i think that s a really, really interesting question. i would be interested in your take on this, chuck, because barr has discussed a number of things, including decisions within the special counsel s office and in the justice department about the special counsel s findings. things that the justice department just told mueller he can t talk about. right. so th
otherwise in a position to know who have suggested what robert mueller should be asked tomorrow and how. joining us now are two people who have their own very well-earned perspectives on this ahead of tomorrow s questioning. chuck rosenberg is a former senior justice department official and former fbi chief of staff. and neal katyal is former acting solicitor general. chuck and neal, we never put two people on together. i promise you re not here to do punch and judy and fight with each other. definitely not. let me ask you about this breaking news we got tonight. concerning somebody described in reporting about the special counsel s process about mueller s chief of staff and we know he was mueller s chief of staff when mueller was fbi director. now it seems that the intelligence committee has made the decision that they re going to swear mr. zebley in also as a witness, to sit next to mueller and also answer questions from at least the intelligence committee members, even if judici
been a constant process of negotiation and refinement. okay. literally while we were just playing that sound bite from adam schiff, i was just handed some breaking news on this very subject. you just heard there how intelligence committee chairman adam schiff explained it as of this afternoon, in terms of these ongoing negotiations about whether or not mueller would be accompanied by his deputy, by his fbi chief of staff aaron zebley, and under what circumstances. well, nbc news is now reporting, according to a house intelligence committee staffer, that we now have some clarity on this. the intelligence committee, again, is going to be the second committee that mueller testifies to tomorrow, and according to nbc news, an agreement has now been reached that aaron zebley, described today as deputy special counsel, aaron zebley, who was mueller s chief of staff when he was fbi director, aaron zebley at the intelligence committee testimony, zebley will be sworn in. so mueller will be swo
they re going to gavel the first hearing into play at about 8:30. we know that mueller is going to have prepared opening statements for each of the two committees. we know that he has not provided them to the justice department in advance. he s not providing them to the committees in advance and we re darn sure he s not going to release them to the public in advance. so they re due to gavel in at 8:30. you should probably be watching before that. right up towards the top, mueller will be giving an opening statement. the first one to the judiciary committee committee. we have no idea what he s going to say and nobody else does either. we re going to talk tonight over the course of this hour about how the committees are preparing. what they might ask. what they should ask. how they should ask their questions. we ll also talk about what else in history has ever been like this, if anything. but there s one piece of this that has been developing just this afternoon and into this evening whi
very anxious to get mr. mueller as well as some other witnesses before the committee, so i say, you know, the more the merrier. if we can bring along don mcgahn and ms. donaldson and some of the other witnesses we ve subpoenaed, i d like them all to come by. surely, though, mueller s own team is is another matter. there had been some discussion that they would be testifying in a closed session that would sort of augment what we were able to see in open session. do we know if there is any plan for a closed session at this point with anyone from mueller s team? my understanding is that there isn t at this point, but mr. mueller also did give us some additional time with himself. i think it s a great idea, as one of your previous guests noted, you know, something of this complexity, the amount of time that was spent, the length of the report, the amount of evidence underlying it, i think it s a good thing if we re able to get more information by having one of his deputies there who