WASHINGTON — Special Counsel Robert Mueller is about to publicly speak about his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election for the first time.The event, slated for 11 a.m. ET, will be live-streamed on the Department of Justice website, www.justice.gov/live, and also at https://www.ustream.tv/doj. The special counsel is expected to give a long statement, an unnamed DOJ official told the New York Times.The Justice Department announced the event Wednesday just over an hour before it was due to begin and said that Mueller will take no questions.Mueller’s public remarks come roughly a month after his final report was made public. The report was released in partly redacted form, prompting Democrats to seek access to the full, unredacted version — and to accuse Attorney General William Barr of spinning the report’s findings with misleading public statements and of potentially covering up the most damaging parts under lines of redaction.Congressional Democrats and Mueller have since discussed whether the special counsel will testify about his findings in televised congressional hearings. But Mueller has said he prefers to answer questions before Congress in “private,” according to Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the New York Democrat who chairs the House Judiciary Committee.Mueller “doesn’t want to participate in anything that he might regard as a political spectacle,” Nadler told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow earlier this month.Cover image: Special counsel Robert Mueller arrives at his office in Washington, Tuesday, April 16, 2019, as his redacted report on Russian interference in the 2016 election is expected to be released publicly by Attorney General William Barr on Thursday. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
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