Mark Mazzetti and Susan Glasser Discuss Mueller’s Testimony

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Tell me, Susan, first — how you think given all the build up that he delivered today?

SUSAN GLASSER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: You know, Christiane — I think it was really a painful hearing to watch at times. It’s both painful because of course, the substance of it is very challenging. You’re talking about real sort of wrongdoing by the President but also a complicated and uncertain question of what Congress should do about it on the one hand. Also special counsel Mueller’s performance was halting, it was tentative at times. He seemed to be a very reluctant witness to questions from both Democrats and Republicans. Remember, it was Democrats themselves who called the hearing, who set this up and said that what they were hoping was that Mueller would in effect bring his report to life. That was what Congressman Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said on Sunday in advance of this hearing. That did not happen by any standard. ?And I think, you know, Trump is now crowing about this as if it was a great vindication. Of course it was not a vindication. The facts are still the facts. It’s still quite a damning report. But at this hearing as something to watch today, it’s hard to imagine that it really any minds.

AMANPOUR: And Mark — you’ve obviously been — you know, part of the investigative team really digging into this whole thing for years now. What will you be writing — what will your take away be for the next round of headlines and copy?

MARK MAZZETTI: I mean I agree with a lot of what Susan said. I mean the Democrats had a gamble here. They had this pretty damning and authoritative report but they figured most Americans haven’t read it and most members of Congress hadn’t read it. And so if they could get Mueller up to personalize this whole thing and is very well respected and authoritative figure, they could get people more engaged. And Mueller said well, if you do it I’m not really going to say anything more than the report. So I’m warning you and they did it anyway. And what — lo and behold, he didn’t really go beyond the report and he didn’t even really feel comfortable reading dramatically his own prose, his own report. He wanted the congressmen to do it. So those sort of looking for sound bites and political points especially on the Democrat side were disappointed. You know, at the same time though, it is certainly interesting after all this time to hear from Mueller, to hear him talk about his conclusions. And remember, this is a person and team of lawyers who had been subjected to really withering criticism by the President and his allies. And so to have Mueller come out and say this was no witch hunt. We were very systematic, we were very thorough. We were very careful. You know, in and of itself, it’s (INAUDIBLE).