Robert Mueller's testimony fails to galvanize nation to impeach Donald Trump

Robert Mueller came before Congress on Wednesday wielding enormous influence as the man appointed to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Even before the former special counsel began testifying, two-thirds of Americans, including 60% of Republicans, viewed Mueller as fair, despite President Donald Trump's relentless attacks on his investigation. As the networks carried his testimony to two House committees, the president's potential fate lay in his hands.

If Democrats expected the former FBI director to galvanize the nation in favor of impeachment, however, they sorely misread the man and the moment. Approaching the hearings with all the enthusiasm of a dental patient scheduled for root canal, Mueller stoically refused to shed new light on the dense, 448-page report his office issued in April.

"I direct you to the report," became Mueller's mantra for the day.

To the extent that he pushed back against the president, it was to call out some of Trump's most blatant mischaracterizations. No, the report doesn't exonerate the president. No, the investigation was not a witch hunt. And, no, Russia's interference in the election to benefit Trump was not a hoax.

And to the extent that Mueller displayed any passion, it was to sound the alarm over continued efforts by a foreign adversary to undermine America's democracy: "They're doing it as we sit here."

ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ: Mueller testimony was confusing and contradictory

Nonetheless, Mueller provided no new firepower to Democrats trying to establish that Trump committed crimes. He reiterated that he didn't find enough evidence to prove any criminal conspiracy between Russians and the Trump campaign. As for obstruction of justice, the reluctant witness offered one-word, affirmative answers — Yes. No. Correct. True. — to the Democrats' line of questioning about how Trump ordered White House counsel Don McGahn to arrange Mueller's firing or falsify evidence.

More often than not, when it came to such fundamental questions as whether Trump broke the law, Mueller retreated to a confusing double negative: “The finding indicates that the president was not exculpated for the acts that he allegedly committed.”

Republicans, otherwise frustrated by Mueller's refusal to comment on the origins of the investigation, raised the cogent point that this inverts the usual standard that a person isn't required to prove innocence. Mueller said this is a special circumstance because of Justice Department guidance that a sitting president can't be indicted, but he didn't elaborate.

To a younger generation of viewers who likely never heard a special counsel answer questions before, Mueller, who turns 75 next month, no doubt came across as befuddled at times — or maybe just weary of the partisan circus Congress has become.

In the end, his slavish devotion to professional reticence as a prosecutor carried the day. This shouldn't have been a surprise. Mueller signaled in his May 29 statement that he wouldn't stray beyond the report's contents. And before the hearings, he sought guidance from the Justice Department on how far afield he could go with his answers and the agency dictated overly strict prohibitions — ones that Attorney General William Barr had himself ignored when he spun Mueller's findings in a favorable light for Trump.

As a private citizen, Mueller might well have had more leeway to share his opinions. He could have shared valuable insights into the reckless actions his report says were taken by Trump to quell Mueller's investigation, or offered insight into whether Trump, once out of office, should face criminal charges.

Most important, given Mueller's role as an honest broker of evidence in a scandal that has convulsed the nation for more than two years, he could have assisted the House of Representatives on deciding whether to launch impeachment proceedings.

In what might turn out to be a missed opportunity of historic proportions, Mueller simply wouldn't go there, leaving the Democrats who control the House no closer to a guidepost on where to go from here.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mueller testimony fails to galvanize nation to impeach Donald Trump