Who’s Asking Mueller Questions: Committee Members to Watch as He Testifies

After two years of near absolute silence, Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, is testifying on Wednesday before lawmakers on the House Judiciary and the House Intelligence Committees. For the lawmakers, it’s an opportunity to publicly grill Mr. Mueller on the report he produced this year and the investigation itself.

Here are the lawmakers to watch during the televised back-and-forth.

Both Representatives Jerrold Nadler, the New York liberal who leads the committee, and Doug Collins of Georgia, the committee’s top Republican, set the tone for the hearing with opening statements outlining their party’s respective arguments. Mr. Nadler was a key force in negotiating Mr. Mueller’s testimony. Mr. Collins began by emphasizing that the investigation was over and that President Trump was innocent.

In his questioning, Mr. Nadler achieved what Democrats wanted from the hearing: Mr. Mueller said aloud that the report did not say that there was no collusion — “not a legal term,” Mr. Mueller said in his opening remarks — and agreed that the report did not exonerate the president.

Mr. Collins, for his part, hammered Mr. Mueller on whether “collusion,” Mr. Trump’s preferred phrase and “conspiracy,” the term used in the report, meant the same thing. Mr. Mueller said they were not synonymous.

Representatives Jim Jordan of Ohio and Matt Gaetz of Florida — both Republicans — are close allies of Mr. Trump and are known for delivering brash monologues in hearings. The men are among the most outspoken critics of the special counsel’s investigation.

Bonus appearance: Representative Mark Meadows, Republican of North Carolina and a chief ally of the president, will not ask questions. But Mr. Meadows appeared in the audience, next to the attorneys and staff who accompanied Mr. Mueller to the hearing.

Part of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s reluctance to pursue an impeachment inquiry comes from her efforts to protect more vulnerable members in the Democratic caucus, who are likely to face tough re-election campaigns in 2020.

But most of the freshmen on the committee have been on the front lines in advocating the opening of an impeachment inquiry, and they have an opportunity to use Mr. Mueller’s testimony to build their case.

Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, who leads the committee, and Representative Devin Nunes, the panel’s top Republican, will build upon the cases Mr. Nadler and Mr. Collins began in the first hearing. Mr. Schiff, in tandem with Mr. Nadler, coordinated Mr. Mueller’s appearance before the committee.

Mr. Nunes, who had to step away from the panel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election for sharing information about it with the White House, has been skeptical about the merits of the special counsel’s work.

Representatives Will Hurd of Texas and Elise Stefanik of New York have proved themselves to be among the few Republicans willing to cross party lines in the 116th Congress. They are the most likely to avoid partisan grandstanding and to focus their questioning on the first volume of the report — which outlined the extent of Russian interference in the 2016 election — as opposed to the second volume, which focused on obstruction.

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