Rep. Adam Schiff, one of the two chairmen that subpoenaed Robert Mueller to testify, said Wednesday he would not characterize the demand as a "friendly subpoena," and said the former special counsel is "not eager" to appear before Congress on July 17.
"From his perspective, and their staff has shared with us that he has viewed himself as a prosecutor and the prosecutors do not testify, but they go to trial," the California Democrat, who heads the House Intelligence Committee, told MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell.
"But as Mueller himself pointed out in the report, he did not make a traditional prosecutorial judgment and he referred the matter to Congress, and so it is perfectly appropriate for Congress to bring him in and talk about the course of the investigation."
Schiff said the committee members will be asking Mueller about what is in his report, but also will go beyond that because Attorney General William Barr also has felt free to discuss matters himself that weren't included in it.
"There is no law or prescription against Bob Mueller talking about other avenues of the investigation they pursued or didn't pursue and so we will have a lot of questions to have him to answer and we expect to get answers," said Schiff.
He said he does expect that Barr will "run interference" for President Donald Trump, "as he has done since he has been appointed," and may be "interposing objections to what Bob Mueller can say and releasing some information that is his own."
"We can expect Bill Barr to act as if Rudy Giuliani is appointed AG because that is how he has behaved," said Schiff.
The format for Mueller's testimony hasn't yet been set up, but each committee will have enough time to ask their questions "if we go with the traditional format," said Schiff.