Mueller will testify before two House committees on July 24, one week after the originally scheduled date, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said in a statement Friday. The former special counsel will testify for “an extended period of time” on that date, Nadler and Schiff said.
Mueller was supposed to testify before the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees on July 17 in two consecutive hearings, each scheduled to last about two hours. A total of 22 lawmakers would have been able to ask the former special counsel questions during the hearings.
However, it remains unclear why the House committees decided Friday to delay Mueller's testimony.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), a Judiciary Committee member and the chair of the House Democratic Caucus, had expressed concern that some lawmakers would not be able to question the special counsel as a result of time constraints.
"Whenever the hearing takes place, it’s important that every single member of the House Democratic caucus who serves on the Judiciary Committee participates in the Mueller hearing," Jeffries recently said, the Daily Beast reported.
Mueller released his report on his investigation in April, in which he said he found no basis for accusing US President Donald Trump of collusion with Russia during his 2016 campaign. However, the extensive redactions in the publicly released version of the report have given Trump's opponents hope that the document may contain something that they can use to support their allegations of a wrongful victory in the presidential race, Sputnik reported.
