The release on April 18 of a redacted version of the Mueller report came after two years of allegations, speculation and insinuation – but not a lot of official information about what really happened between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Nor had there been much light shed on whether the president tried to obstruct the investigation into his campaign.
The report prepared by special counsel Robert Mueller and issued by the Justice Department provided greater detail about those questions. And it offered more information about Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The Trump administration will want to argue that the release of the Mueller report is the end of investigating the Russia scandal.
On the contrary, the version of the report released is only the start of wide-ranging and intensive House investigations.
I served as special deputy chief counsel of the House Iran-contra investigation of the Reagan administration. We did months of hearings on the type of material that is either incomplete or redacted, as today’s Congress will find, in the Mueller report.
Here are some of the ways the House will likely follow up with more investigation.
1. Bring in Witnesses to Testify
The House will call some of the witnesses mentioned in the report for their full story, not just their cameo appearance in this incomplete report.
For example, the report has the public’s first account from Michael T. Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser. So, there are a number of contacts mentioned for the first time on the public record between Flynn and Russia that in my reading consistently demonstrate Trump’s partiality to Putin and Russia.
But, until we get a House public hearing with Flynn as a witness, we will not know the full story.
Why did Trump have such a strong bond with Putin? Did Trump have a personal reason, not some foreign policy reason, to favor Russia? Why did Trump…