House Democrats move on from Mueller, promote legislation

WASHINGTON — House Democrats on Thursday sought to move past the hearings with former special counsel Robert Mueller, tamp down presidential impeachment expectations and push a message to potential voters in next year’s elections.

Standing outside the U.S. Capitol, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., touted the accomplishments that the Democrat-controlled House mustered in the first 200 legislative days since taking over the chamber.

Pelosi said Democrats would use the next month to educate the public on their legislation, all of which has been blocked in the Republican-controlled Senate.

“In the month of August, our members will accelerate a drumbeat across the nation,’’ Pelosi said on the eve of a six-week House recess. “We will own August for the people.”

There was no mention of Mueller, his halting testimony the day before on the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential elections or his difficulty with answering questions about the president and his election team.

But the lack of a full-throated endorsement of further congressional investigation by Mueller seemed to set back Democratic plans to pivot to impeachment proceedings to appease roughly a third of the Democrats in the House.

Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, were elated with the turn of events.

“It is time that America turns the page,” said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. He said Democrats have to stop wasting time in “trying to have a do-over of the presidential election.”

Republicans have downplayed the Mueller investigation as a Democratic attack on President Donald Trump.

Mueller defended his investigation in back-to-back hearings by the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees on Wednesday, and pointedly refuted Trump’s assertion that he had been cleared on potential charges of obstruction of justice.

Mueller’s testimony failed to give Democrats an endorsement for impeachment, but Mueller testified that the investigation could not exonerate the president on obstruction charges, which he left to Congress to pursue.

Department of Justice policy, Mueller testified, would not allow him to indict a sitting president.

The investigation and its report detailed 10 instances in which Trump sought to derail or terminate the probe — including ordering the firing of Mueller — because he thought it would doom his presidency.

Trump himself brought up Mueller unprompted to a roomful of donors in West Virginia on Wednesday night, hours after Mueller concluded his testimony. Trump asserted that Mueller’s testimony was a miserable effort by Democrats to discredit him, West Virginia Senate President Mitch Carmichael told the AP. The president also called the hearings a dud for anyone who thought new, more damaging information would emerge, Carmichael said.

On Twitter on Thursday morning, Trump quoted triumphantly from the words of “Fox & Friends” hosts who bashed Mueller and expressed support for his administration.

Mueller, a former FBI director and a decorated Vietnam War veteran, was a reluctant witness for Democrats who sought to bring his 448-page report to life with television coverage.

Although Democratic Chairmen Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., and Adam Schiff, D-Calif., on the Judiciary and Intelligence committees, respectively, have said they are willing to move forward with an impeachment inquiry, Pelosi has said the committees need to continue working to develop a stronger case for it.

Pelosi and other Democrats sought to shift the spotlight Thursday to pocketbook issues that helped their party win the House.

Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., spoke about the 50 major bills passed by House Democrats since arriving in Washington, including bills that aim to boot big-money influence out of politics, eliminate corruption, protect health care for working middle-class families and help stop gun violence.

Every Democratic member of the Nevada congressional delegation — Reps. Dina Titus, Susie Lee and Steven Horsford — has voted for those pieces of legislation.

Rep. Mark Amodei, the lone Republican in the delegation, has voted with his party against the bills.

Despite House passage along mostly party lines, not one piece of legislation has been taken up by the GOP-led Senate, which is expected to kick off its recess next week.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has scoffed at the “message bills” passed by the House and has vowed that none will be brought up by the Senate.

Contact Gary Martin at gmartin@reviewjournal.com or 202-662-7390. Follow @garymartindc on Twitter.