Robert Mueller's Congressional Testimony

Submission 2,999

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Overview

Robert Mueller's Congressional Testimony took place on July 24th, 2019 in Washington, D.C. During his testimony, former Special Counsel Mueller confirmed and referred to the Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election. Many criticized his testimony for frequently referring to the report and seemingly evading question.

Background

On June 25th, 2019, the New York Times^[1] reported that Mueller would testify to congress on July 17th, 2019 regarding his office's report on Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election and alleged obstruction of justice by President Donald Trump. There would be two hearings, one with the House Judiciary Committee, and another with the House Intelligence Committee.

On July 12th, the Washington Post^[2] reported that the date of the hearing had been rescheduled to July 25th.

Developments

Hearing

Mueller's hearing on Capitol Hill lasted seven hours. During that time, Mueller defended his report from criticisms made by President Trump and his supporters. During one exchange between himself and Representative Jerry Nadler, Mueller denied the frequently made Trump claim that the report "totally exonerated" the president.

However, Mueller because Mueller would not read from the report and continued to refer the report without reading the charges aloud. Numerous times throughout the hearing, Mueller responded with variations of "I can't answer that question."

Online Reaction

That day, the event inspired numerous threads of conversation on Reddit. Redditor^[3] droosrockbass posted "Robert Mueller tells hearing that Russian tampering in US election was a 'serious challenge' to democracy" in the /r/world news subreddit, receiving more than 32,000 points (85% upvoted) and 2,900 comments in 24 hours. Reddit's^[4] political moderator bot posted a discussion thread in the /r/politics, which received more than 22,000 points (89% upvoted) and 32,000 comments. Redditor^[5] Throwawaydude01928 posted "Scarborough during Mueller hearing: 'Jesus, forgive me for ever being a Republican'" in the /r/politics subreddit. The post received more than 22,000 points (88% upvoted) and 2,400 comments in 24 hours.

Some reacted Mueller's typical response of one-word answers, referring to the report and/or stating that he "can't get into that" by sharing memes recreating the situation (examples below).

I Take Your Question

During the hearing, Congressman Louie Gohmert questioned Robert Mueller about his relationship with former FBI Director James Comey. Later in the hearing, Gohmert accused Mueller of perpetuating "injustice." Gohmert raised his voice in his questioning, expressing his anger with the special counsel's office (shown below). Mueller responded to Gohmert, "I take your question."

Georgetown Law School visiting law professor M. Tia Johnson told Quartz,^[6] "'I take your question’ is used often when the witness doesn’t know the answer to the question." Quartz continued, "It’s distinct from a straight 'no' because it indicates that the answer may well be knowable, just that this witness doesn’t know it."

Johnson said, "My sense was, based on special counsel’s demeanor, with him just kind of sitting there, that it was almost like ‘I’ve had enough’ or ‘I got it.'"

The phrase became a popular catchphrase online. Twitter users used the phrase to express feelings of antagonistic dismissal. For example, Twitter^[7] user @JonahNRO tweeted, "'I take your question' is the new 'Bye Felicia.'" The tweet received more than 5,800 likes and 1,400 retweets in 24 hours (shown below).

Throughout the day, others shared variations on the phrase (examples below). Several media outlets covered the meme, including Mashable, ^[8] New York,^[9] Uproxx,^[10] HuffPost,^[11] Time^[12] and more.