Thread by @SethAbramson

(THREAD) As the author of two books detailing events connected to the Mueller Report, I've created a list of *100 questions* Democrats should ask Mueller when he testifies on July 24. Please RETWEET these questions in the hope we can all hold Congress accountable for asking them.

NOTE/ I divided these 100 questions into 5 categories of 20 questions, emphasizing the Mueller Report's too-little-discussed Vol. 1. As to Vol. 2, Dems can—and should—just ask Mueller to take them through the volume. We shouldn't expect fireworks or miracles from those questions.

FIRST CATEGORY/ ADMINISTRATIVE QUESTIONS:

1/ You limited your [Vol. 1] probe to consideration of whether Trump or any of his associates participated in a before-the-fact conspiracy with the IRA or GRU. On what basis did you decide to make this narrow band of collusive activity your sole (non-obstruction) area of inquiry?

2/ Did you have reports from law enforcement, media, or other sources at the outset of your probe that caused you to believe—at a level of reasonable suspicion, the standard for initiating an investigation—that it was these criminal acts, not others, that warranted investigation?

3/ Your team decided not to use the lay term “collusion” in your report—which is understandable. However, in determining that it wasn't relevant or helpful to your work, you had to first generate a definition for it. What is the definition of "collusion" that your team developed?

4/ Under the definition of "collusion" that you and your team derived, adopted, or acknowledged, are there any "collusive" acts—again, per the lay definition you’ve provided here before Congress—that accurately describe *any* act in a fact-pattern establishing a criminal offense?

5/ For instance, is the federal crime of bribery undergirded by (or does it itself constitute) a "collusive" act, under the definition you’ve provided? Is aiding and abetting? Receiving illegal foreign campaign donations? Obstructing justice to hide the crimes of another person?

6/ Were you at any point instructed or advised, in writing or otherwise, by any person or entity within DOJ or outside it, not to consider aiding and abetting, money laundering, bribery, RICO, wire/bank fraud, or illegal (non-Russian) foreign donations to the 2016 Trump campaign?

7/ When did you discover—during your probe—media or other reports establishing facts that would be relevant to a bribery probe of Trump and his campaign? When did you decide not to pursue such facts, which were far more common in media than before-the-fact conspiracy allegations?

8/ When did you discover—during your probe—media or other reports establishing facts that would be relevant to a money laundering probe of Trump and his campaign? When did you decide not to pursue such reports, which were *far* more common than before-the-fact conspiracy reports?

9/ When did your team discover media—or other—reports establishing facts relevant to possible aiding and abetting or wire/bank fraud crimes by Trump and/or his campaign? Why did you decide not to pursue such reports—which were far more common than the reports you chose to pursue?

10/ Do you concede that a federal subject can conspire to commit bribery, conspire to commit wire/bank fraud, or conspire to launder money—and that your probe of a before-the-fact Trump-IRA/GRU conspiracy doesn't preclude other Trump-Russia or Trump-foreign national conspiracies?

11/ Having decided not to (yourself) investigate the bribery, money laundering, or aiding/abetting allegations prevalent in reporting when you were appointed, when did you decide to exclude even passing reference to such charges—or your decision not to pursue them—in your report?

12/ When you found probative evidence relevant to building federal bribery, aiding/abetting, RICO, money laundering, wire/bank fraud, or non-Russian illegal solicitation/acceptance of foreign campaign donations cases, what did you do with it? How are you monitoring any referrals?

13/ Given that Acting Attorney General (as to the Trump-Russia investigation) Rod Rosenstein wasn't just a foreseeable but a *known* witness in one of the possible criminal acts you were investigating (obstruction), did you ever ask him to recuse himself from being your overseer?

14/ Did you at any point receive any pressure from Acting Attorney General Rosenstein—or anyone at DOJ, including Attorneys General Matthew Whitaker or William Barr—to conclude the investigation early? Did you ever receive any such pressure from outside the Department of Justice?

15/ Given that your office was *bringing in more money than it was spending*—and that political considerations are wholly out-of-bounds—why did you shut down your office while prosecutions that relied on your evidence, your investigators and your prosecutors were *still ongoing*?

16/ Is your sworn testimony before Congress that there was *no chance* that future developments in ongoing cases spurred by your investigation—for instance a Stone conviction or Manafort flip based on new charges or circumstances—could have led to evidence relevant to your probe?

17/ At the time you shut down your office—with open referred cases, open witness subpoenas, an open grand jury and open document requests—was there *any information whatsoever* you were in the process of seeking and hadn't yet received that could have impacted your investigation?

18/ Is there any DOJ mechanism for you to file an addendum to your report based on new information that may emerge in the coming months or next year? Have you considered—or would you consider—spearheading such an addendum if developments in the 14 cases you referred warranted it?

19/ If you’re not willing to take on the task of pursuing investigative leads relevant to your DOJ appointment that arise subsequent to you closing a DOJ office with open evidentiary requests and referred cases, how do you expect (or would you expect, or advise) DOJ to handle it?

20/ Given the foregoing, would you agree that your report isn't a "final" report as to the facts you investigated? Also—as the report references non-DOJ remedies for responding to possible offenses you declined to prosecute—what remedies were you referring to? Is impeachment one?

NOTE/ I'm going to pause for a bit. The next category is INVESTIGATIVE QUESTIONS.

SECOND CATEGORY/ INVESTIGATIVE QUESTIONS

1/ On pg. 10 of Vol. 1 of your Report, you make it *crystal* clear that individuals connected to Trump lied to you and your investigators. Why did your report not clearly—in a dedicated fashion—list the Trump-connected witnesses who lied to you, given that such lying was a crime?

2/ You ultimately charged a few Trump-connected individuals with lying to your office—but have never provided an exhaustive list of all persons in this category, nor has any action been taken on multiple Congressional criminal referrals of Trump-connected witnesses who lied. Why?

3/ Did you lack the investigative, administrative, or financial resources to resolve instances in which someone connected to Trump lied to you? How or why did you lack those critical resources, and who denied them to you when you asked for them? When were those resources denied?

4/ Please offer Congress a *list* of the Trump-related witnesses who lied to you and made it impossible for your to ascertain certain facts in your report—and please list the facts you were unable to ascertain. How would knowing these facts have been relevant to your conclusions?

5/ Did you opt *not* to charge with lying to you any person you *could* have so charged? If so, why? What other means did you have at your disposal to avoid writing a report in which you say witnesses lying to you kept you from getting to the truth in a key federal criminal case?

6/ Your report says you found the best evidence you could given *many* constraints. Was time a constraint? Political considerations? Oversight? Money? In how many past cases did you face such constraints? Would you characterize your probe as obstructed? A failure? Why or why not?

7/ You've indicated that if Trump associates hadn't lied to your office, you might have found additional evidence that would have changed your conclusions. Does this mean that if Trump associates had not lied to your office, you might've charged Trump or others with a conspiracy?

8/ Many of Trump's written answers contradicted your other evidence, yet you didn't put any evidence in your report unless you had high confidence in its accuracy. Does that mean Trump lied to you? You called his answers—at a minimum—incomplete. Why not pursue *complete* answers?

9/ Will you confirm that you put no information in your report unless and until you had "high confidence" in it, and therefore it is correct for member of Congress and the general public to refer to *any fact in your report* as one that you found to be true with high confidence?

10/ Your report says Trump-linked witnesses withheld, destroyed, or permitted to have destroyed evidence relevant to your probe. Why did the report not include a list of each witness whose actions fell in this category? Are any such witnesses not identified as such in the report?

11/ Did you lack the investigative, administrative, or financial resources to resolve instances in which someone tied to the president withheld evidence from you or destroyed relevant evidence? How or why did you lack those resources, and who denied you those resources, and when?

12/ Please list the Trump-related witnesses who withheld evidence from you (even if under a privilege) or destroyed evidence—a possible crime—making it impossible for you to ascertain certain facts. (And which facts?) How would knowing these facts be relevant to your conclusions?

13/ Did you opt not to charge with withholding or destroying evidence any person you could have so charged? Why? What other means did you have at your disposal to avoid writing a report in which you say people withholding or destroying evidence kept you from getting to the truth?

14/ You’ve indicated that if Trump associates hadn't withheld evidence from your office—or destroyed relevant evidence—you might've found more evidence that would've *changed your conclusions*. Does this include the possibility of charging Trump or his associates with conspiracy?

15/ According to media reports, the number of investigative leads your pursued with vigor is *exponentially* greater than what we see in your report. Are there leads based on reasonable suspicion, probable cause, or a preponderance of the evidence that you elided from the report?

16/ Given that you’ve said one purpose of your report was to preserve evidence and aid non-DOJ processes that might arise subsequent to the report, why did you elide significant investigative leads—knowing your underlying case file would be unavailable to other federal officials?

17/ As the person who compiled the [rumored to be millions of pages long] case file, do you have any objection to members of Congress or the public reviewing it once any classified intelligence is redacted? If so—why? Do you believe Starr was wrong to share his file in the 1990s?

18/ Given your investigative constraints—and that you referred 14 cases to other prosecutors and shared evidence with an untold number of jurisdictions—do you agree your report isn't a "final" summary of the probative criminal evidence you uncovered, even as to your narrow brief?

19/ Given that federal prosecutors can simply ask courts to release grand jury transcripts—and that probative but potentially “embarrassing” facts about witnesses go public in *all* criminal cases—why did you not militate for such categories of information to be made public here?

20/ Did you ever get counsel, advice, or instruction from anyone outside the Special Counsel’s Office—including DOJ, the US counterintelligence community, or foreign nationals—suggesting or advising you not charge someone with a crime for political or counterintelligence reasons?

NOTE/ I'm going to pause for a bit. The next category is COUNTERINTELLIGENCE QUESTIONS.

SPECIAL NOTE ON COUNTERINTELLIGENCE QUESTIONS/ Mueller may refuse to answer some of these in open session; that doesn't mean Congress can't compel him to answer them in closed session or—if he can’t/won’t do so July 24—schedule another round of interviews for behind closed doors.

1/ Given that you planned to redact *any* information from your report that could reveal U.S. counterintelligence *methods*, how did you decide which counterintelligence-related *information* (*exclusive* of the methods required to compile it) to keep from the report altogether?

2/ Who helped you make your decision about which counterintelligence information to include in your final report? As this information is not itself classified, you should be able to supply a list of the agencies with which you were in contact (CIA, FBI, DOJ, NSA, DIA, and so on).

3/ When you found—and sent to the U.S. counterintelligence community—evidence that you had uncovered that you believed was relevant to America’s counterintelligence mission, did you include in such transmissions any *cover materials or summaries* you haven't provided to Congress?

4/ Did you or your team see, or are you aware of, *any* counterintelligence report, whether preliminary or partial or final, having been prepared in conjunction with *any* of the information you passed on to the U.S. counterintelligence community, and/or any foreign affiliate(s)?

5/ Did the counterintelligence community respond to your transmissions to it with any *additional* documents, evidence, cover materials, or queries, and have you shared or disclosed these to Congress or to DOJ? Did the counterintelligence community offer you investigative leads?

6/ Do you have any objection to members of Congress, or members of the general public, seeing a redacted—or in the case of select and pre-cleared members of Congress, an unredacted—version of any working or final counterintelligence report your work helped establish and develop?

7/ Would you, in fact, urge the U.S. counterintelligence community to share with select members of Congress, and to the extent possible the entirety of Congress and the whole of the American people, its counterintelligence findings with respect to the Trump-Russia investigation?

8/ Do you confirm that you construed your brief as being exclusive of counterintelligence, and therefore if you had evidence suggesting a clear and present danger to America by a preponderance of the evidence—the counterintelligence standard—you *didn’t* include it in the report?

9/ Is it fair to say no one could conclude one way or another from your report whether you found information at the level of "preponderance of the evidence" suggesting that—as a matter of counterintelligence—a person, including POTUS, is a clear and present danger to the country?

10/ Counterintelligence probes *often* uncover evidence relevant to future criminal cases. Is it not also the case that criminal investigations can produce counterintelligence leads to be assessed under a different standard of proof, and with a different “finding” attached to it?

11/ Does your report take a position on whether POTUS is "compromised"—thus, a clear and present danger to the U.S.—as a matter of counterintelligence? Does it take a position on if a POTUS can be impeached for being a clear and present danger as a matter of counterintelligence?

12/ Your report references bribery as an offense for which POTUS’s mens rea can constitutionally be assessed, yet we don't find a factual or legal assessment of (e.g.) possible Trump Tower Moscow or inauguration bribery offenses in your report, even to exclude such offenses. Why?

13/ Why does your report conduct no assessment of Trump receiving his first counterintelligence briefing on Russian crimes on August 17, 2016—though he attended the briefing with someone you charged, and the meeting *altered his legal liability* under the aiding/abetting statute?

14/ The list of foreign nationals who advised/transacted with Trump's 2016 campaign your report never mentions numbers in the dozens—nearly all Saudis, Emiratis, Egyptians, or Israelis. Why does your report not consider any conspiracy but one subset of possible Trump-Russia ones?

15/ Given that we can see no evidence you probed possible conspiracy or coordination between Trump or his campaign and Saudi Arabia, Israel, the UAE or Egypt—though Trump associates from these countries regularly interacted with the Kremlin in 2016—where did any such evidence go?

16/ Your report positions the Soviet-born Dimitri Simes as the Trump campaign's most significant adviser on Russian affairs, yet takes his word for it that he never passed any intelligence to the Kremlin—despite him being hired by the Kremlin shortly post-election. Explain this.

17/ Media reports establish that Trump's Russia sanctions policy was attached to a six-nation "grand bargain"/"Mideast Marshall Plan" Trump aides communicated to foreign nationals—thus violating the Logan Act—pre-election. What use—please be specific—did you make of such reports?

18/ You reported that Trump had reason to think Putin had kompromat on him pre-election. His private actions, public statements, and Russia policy had the effect of obscuring Russian crimes—thereby protecting him against such kompromat. Did you pass this intelligence to the USIC?

19/ Why did you send FBI agents to Israel, Greece, Cyprus, and elsewhere in the Middle East and Europe to ask questions about possible Trump Organization money laundering and Trump campaign receipt of foreign aid pre-election if you were just going to pass such intel to the USIC?

20/ Without a report on the counterintelligence you compiled from international witnesses—and without any visibility into the multinational conspiracy/non-conspiracy crimes you investigated—how can *any* American consider your report on preelection Trump campaign crimes complete?

NOTE/ I'm going to pause for a bit. The next category is PROSPECTIVE QUESTIONS.

MID-THREAD RECAP/

ADMINISTRATIVE questions: Questions #1-20.
INVESTIGATIVE questions: Questions #21-40.
COUNTERINTEL questions: Questions #41-60.

And the forthcoming categories of questioning:

PROSPECTIVE questions: Questions #61-80.
MISCELLANEOUS questions: Questions #81-100.

FOURTH CATEGORY/ PROSPECTIVE QUESTIONS:

1/ You ran one of the most high-profile, high-stakes federal criminal investigations in the history of the US. Now Congress wants to conduct oversight of your work and—as your work proposes—continue along the investigative paths you disclosed. Why are you so reluctant to testify?

2/ Cases you referred to other jurisdictions that are connected to the questions you investigated will be unfolding across the nation for months—maybe years. Will you continue to be reluctant to (privately) testify before Congress to shed light on cases you effectively initiated?

3/ You referred a trove of evidence to U.S. counterintelligence; the USIC now refuses to publicly disclose anything they received from you or offer more than intermittent reports to Congress. Will you provide Congress with the details of this CI evidence—sans "methods"—you found?

4/ You wrote that Attorney General Barr has misrepresented the substance and context of your investigation—but resisted us calling you today to help remedy the very ill of which you complained. What *other* actions can you now take to remedy your now-misrepresented investigation?

5/ Presumably, you still want the *critical testimonial evidence* you offered Manafort a deal (to testify against someone "above" him) to try to get. What if it became available to investigators going forward? Is anyone trying to make this happen? Why not? Same question on Stone.

6/ What did you expect Congress to do with your report, given your repeated references—in the report—to seeing your report as merely a precursor to subsequent Congressional action and a placeholder-in-time for ongoing evidentiary inquiries? What should we do that we’re not doing?

7/ Given that Trump-linked witnesses lied to you, withheld info, refused to answer your questions and destroyed evidence you needed—and that these witnesses now refuse to speak to us—how do you see your probe as merely preparatory to actions we might take, rather than conclusive?

8/ Would you urge, today, the many Trump-connected witnesses you spoke to—both those who you think told you the truth, those you cut deals with, and those who lied to you, withheld evidence from you, or destroyed evidence you needed—to now speak publicly, under oath, to Congress?

9/ AG Barr said—in a recent nationally televised interview—that he'd *wanted and expected you* to make a determination on obstruction. When you discovered that, did you contact him to ask if you could complete your work in a way that would satisfy him? Would you ask now? Why not?

10/ Have you made—or will you make—your entire investigative case file available to (1) any prosecutors you've referred cases to, (2) any federal prosecutors who ask for it, or (3) Congress, to the extent possible? If not—why not? If it’s a DOJ decision, do you urge DOJ to do so?

11/ Do you oppose Congress interviewing your former office's attorneys or investigators? And a related question: Do you have any position on Congress’s DOJ referrals (of your witnesses) for perjury—and if not, why not, given that *you’re* one of the federal officers they lied to?

12/ Did you encounter any information during the course of your probe that militated for the appointment of a new special counsel to handle matters outside your brief? For instance, the counterintelligence your report elides? If so, to whom did you make your recommendation? When?

13/ How did you decide when and why it was appropriate to delegate cases or evidence elsewhere? At times you decline to call your report a “final” report. Is that because your probe transformed into many ongoing investigations? If it’s “final,” in what way—besides administrative?

14/ You repeatedly refused to resolve evidentiary contradictions in your investigation and report—even when they related to potential crimes and charging decisions. Did you delegate responsibility to any person/entity for resolving such contradictions after the report was filed?

NOTE ON #14/ I refer to the many contradictions between Prince and Bannon's testimony; ongoing evidence of concealment as to the June '16 meeting that's relevant to the office’s mens rea determination; claims by Trump in written answers that contradict other witnesses; and so on.

15/ Have you been contacted, or to your knowledge has anyone from your office been contacted, by those federal prosecutors now working the 1MDB and George Nader cases? Do you agree to cooperate—and urge any former agents to cooperate—with any such requests from these prosecutors?

16/ You made a deal with Flynn—saving him from prosecution for numerous crimes and years of prison—he seems now to have broken. With you having shut down your office, what actions can you or will you take to ensure justice is done re: a federal witness who's breached a plea deal?

17/ Can you describe your office's investigative strategy in often seeking plea deals with *very* senior Trump campaign officials like Flynn, Manafort, and Gates? Were you—per conventional investigative methods—seeking to prosecute people above them? If so, who were those people?

NOTE ON #17/ Congress has a right to ask this question. Mueller cut a deal with Manafort and got burned; cut a deal with Flynn and got burned; cut a deal with Gates and... it didn't lead to prosecutions. Congress has an oversight responsibility to ask Mueller *why* this happened.

18/ Do the bizarre, bad-faith actions of highly placed Trump campaign officials and advisers you cut immunity deals with—Flynn, Manafort, Papadopoulos, Nader, and (indirectly) Weisselberg and Pecker, to name a few—cause you to re-evaluate what they told you? And why *not*—if not?

19/ Do the later actions of Trump-linked witnesses you interviewed—like Simes, who fled to Moscow; Nader, who lied to a court about health problems; Corsi, who now says he can't distinguish between fantasy and reality—cause you to re-evaluate what they told you? Why *not*—if not?

20/ How do you expect Congress to conduct any meaningful oversight of your work—or follow up on any leads you pursued (a) incompletely, (b) only in a narrow way related to your narrow brief, or (c) without any subsequent mentions in your report—*without access to your case file*?

NOTE/ I'm going to pause for a bit. The next category is MISCELLANEOUS QUESTIONS.

NOTE ON MISCELLANEOUS QUESTIONS/ These are Questions #81-100 that I'm suggesting to Congress—not for no reason; many members of Congress and Congressional staffers follow this feed, including some on relevant committees—but I'll post them intermittently, as they do run the gamut.

FIFTH CATEGORY/ MISCELLANEOUS QUESTIONS

1/ In how many of your prior federal criminal cases did you opt not to prosecute someone (here Don Jr.) because you decided a statute was unconstitutional or unconstitutionally vague? Do you reject the idea that that determination is for Congress, courts, or a defendant's lawyer?

2/ How do federal prosecutors offer evidence of specific intent—in federal court, someone's knowledge that they're violating the law—besides by direct confessions on that score? Is concealment evidence a way? What's the concealment evidence as to the June '16 Trump Tower meeting?

3/ Did you conduct an investigation of how and when—as it happened *many* times—Trump aides, associates, or advisers had contact with foreign nationals who were, in turn, in contact with the Kremlin, i.e. what information passed from Trump to the Kremlin via *two* intermediaries?

4/ To the extent you conducted any bribery, aiding and abetting, money laundering, or accessory after the fact investigations—though you give no indication any such investigations ever occurred—to what extent did you trace the developing or timing of Trump's policy announcements?

5/ Many members of the U.S. intel community had contact with Trump when he was a candidate, president-elect, and then president—under circumstances that would establish his state of mind and knowledge base for certain crimes. Did such people subject themselves to your interviews?

6/ You found Trump's written answers incomplete, vague, internally contradictory, contradictory of other evidence and insufficient to your investigative needs—and *knew* you could subpoena him—yet made no effort to pin down a witness you gave others *plea deals* to pin down. Why?

7/ Was your willingness to thoroughly interview any witness—for instance, Prince, Broidy, Sessions, foreign intel agents, Israeli business intel experts tied to Netanyahu's government, or Trump family members—hindered in any way by political or counterintelligence considerations?

8/ What efforts did you make to interview presumptively "unavailable" witnesses—like Kremlin, Israeli, or MBS agents—or witnesses whose questioning would have become a political football (and possibly *cost you your job*), such as Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump, Kushner, and Trump Jr.?

9/ At points in your report you make vague, imprecise, decidedly *non-legal* statements about having to consider the costs and benefits of a prosecution—even under circumstances in which you believe a criminal statute has been violated. What could you possibly have meant by that?

10/ Trump's campaign manager and deputy campaign manager met secretly with a man they knew to be a Kremlin agent and agreed to give to him private briefings about Trump's campaign—and proprietary intel. Even if not conspiracy, how did you conclude this involved no "coordination"?

11/ President Trump told you under oath that his whole family, whole presidential campaign staff, and whole presidential transition team kept him *100% in the dark*—for *years*—about *every single probe-relevant contact* they had with *any* foreign national. Did you believe him?

12/ Given that your report was neither final nor a report with a prosecutorial judgment nor a report that was expected to be the last word on a matter nor a report that had access to all the evidence it wanted/required, why did you not note when you believed a witness had *lied*?

13/ Who are the top 10 witnesses you were unable to interview who you wanted to interview? What were the top 10 pieces of documentary evidence you wanted to access that you were unable to access? What are the most important pieces of evidence you called "withheld" or "destroyed"?

14/ Given that yours was the largest, most complex federal criminal investigation in U.S. political history—with new evidence being published every day and other urgently required evidence lying across impassable national boundaries—how or why did you finish your work so quickly?

15/ You opined to AG Barr that your work was being *misrepresented*. So how do you respond to those who *falsely* say:

a) You found no evidence of conspiracy?
b) You found no evidence of coordination?
c) You found no evidence of collusion?
d) You found no evidence of wrongdoing?

16/ Can you walk us through Vol. 2 of the report? (Note: This is my way of saying that asking directed questions achieving this result is *all* Congress should do with respect to Vol. 2. It's Vol. 1 where some truly penetrating questions have to be asked right now and in public.)

17/ POTUS says he directed every resource to assisting your investigation—which presumably includes supplying you with all the testimony you wanted from him and his aides and every document under his control that you desired. Do you agree with his characterization of his conduct?

18/ Given that you were appointed precisely *because* the DOJ—*run by Trump*—could not be expected to adjudicate (legally or otherwise) the investigative processes attendant to investigating DOJ officials' *boss*, why, exactly, were you bound by an OLC opinion from that very DOJ?

19/ If you could've had 5 things go differently in your 23 months as special counsel, what would those 5 things have been? And now that your boss has said you didn't do your job—by refusing to adjudicate obstruction—would you act differently if you'd known then what you know now?

20/ You and your team clearly made—early on—a distinction between three categories: a) determinations it was for you to make, b) determinations it was for other prosecutors to make, and c) determinations it was for Congress to make. Which determinations fell into which category?

CONCLUSION1/ I'm in the group that thinks Mueller's testimony *won't* be groundbreaking—and we shouldn't expect it to be. Congress will be ineffectual on Vol. 1 and do too much grandstanding—and too little pedagogical work—on Vol. 2. It'll likely end up as a wash—just more chaos.

CONCLUSION2/ There are many better ways to educate the public on Vol. 2 than this sort of hearing—whether it's the publication of the report in a friendly annotated format, a play, Twitter threads, TV interviews, regular public fora or whatever. Vol. 1 *should* be the focus here.

CONCLUSION3/ Vol. 2 is either unknown to a voter—which one can remedy—or the voter doesn't care (which can't be remedied). By comparison, Vol. 1 has been so brazenly lied about—and Mueller arguably messed up so much of it (and/or didn't complete it)—we *need* this public hearing.

CONCLUSION4/ The *reason* Republicans will focus on Vol. 1—by way of falsely attacking Mueller, lying about the underlying evidence, and doggedly misstating every conclusion in Vol. 1—is that they see Vol. 2 as no threat to them whatsoever. That's a hard fact to say, and to hear.

CONCLUSION5/ Inasmuch as Democrats focus on Vol. 2, they must be educating us—not grandstanding. Let Mueller talk—do a direct examination. To the extent Vol. 1 is what *really* matters at *this* hearing, I'm afraid to say they must proceed as though this is a *cross-examination*.

NOTE/ I worded these questions—largely—as direct examination questions. In saying Democrats must proceed as though this is a cross-examination, I mean that the witness is reluctant—could even be slightly hostile, as he didn't want to appear—and questions must anticipate conflict.