[Erica Hill, Cnn:] Hello, I'm Erica Hill, in for Brooke Baldwin. As members of Congress prepare for one of the highest stakes hearings of their career, CNN is learning new details about what Robert Mueller is requesting before he testifies. The former Special Counsel making an 11th hour appeal to the House Judiciary Committee. We want to get straight to CNN senior congressional correspondent, Manu Raju. So Manu, what is Mueller asking now ahead of tomorrow's hearing?
[Manu Raju, Cnn Senior Congressional Correspondent:] Yes, this is a last ditch request that was made by the Special Counsel and that really caused a number of Republicans to raise alarms. What he is asking for is that his deputy Aaron Zebley, to be sworn in tomorrow to answer any questions that may come up that perhaps the Special Counsel cannot fully answer, and instead have Zebley answer those questions, instead. Republicans are saying this is not should not be agreed to. They're saying this is quote "unprecedented." The top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee said it would undercut the integrity of the committee. Now, Democrats have not agreed to this yet. But I am told from a source familiar with the matter, who just messaged me just moments ago, that Zebley will be there as a counsel to Mueller for the hearing tomorrow. We will sit next to him during the hearing. It's not clear if he will be sworn in. That is the actual what the Republicans have been concerned about. But it shows how sensitive these negotiations have been in how it's high stakes this hearing is tomorrow. Already, Democrats have been preparing behind the scenes, mock hearings, Republicans have as well and some Democrats including Joaquin Castro, who is on the House Intelligence Committee believes that tomorrow's hearing could change the dial and raise the prospects of impeachment proceedings in the House.
[Raju:] Do you think that it could change the dial on impeachment?
[Rep. Joaquin Castro:] I think it certainly could. I think, for example, when people hear that Robert Mueller listed out 10 instances where the President may have obstructed justice and the fact that, I think a big part of the reason that he's not being indicted is because he's the sitting President. Yes, I think that's really important to people. Yes, I think that it's going to open a lot of Americans eyes to what exactly the President has done and what his circle did in the 2016 election.
[Raju:] So Democrats in the House Judiciary Committee this afternoon plan to have a mock hearing to lay out their areas of questioning. They point unlimited to a certain number of areas about obstruction of justice. They want their questions to focus in roughly five areas, they believe will really resonate with the American public. Republicans, on the other hand, want to focus about what they believe are bias on the Mueller team, the origins of the investigation, and their belief that the probe should not have been launched to begin with. Expect Mueller to deal with that. But this last minute request by the Special Counsel to have his deputy come in, to answer to be sworn in, to answer questions call it throwing a wrench and of sorts, and this is showing how reluctant Mueller has been as a witness for months as these negotiations have been going on. We still expect that hearing to happen tomorrow. And we do are now hearing that he's going to be this deputy will be a counsel sitting alongside with him at the hearing. We will see how Republicans react to this as this moves ahead Erica.
[Hill:] Absolutely. Manu Raju with the latest for us there. Manu, thank you. For his part, the President is also gearing up for tomorrow's hearing, launching a preemptive strike today attempting to discredit anything Mueller could reveal. His audience for that, a student summit in Washington. CNN's Abby Phillip is at the White House. Abby, the President saying yesterday, maybe a little, might watch a little of the Special Counsel's testimony tomorrow. Is that still the plan?
[Abby Phillip, Cnn White House Correspondent:] Well, as you said, Erica, he said he wasn't going to watch it and then maybe he will catch a little bit of it. I think most people in this building believe the President will be watching at least some of it as most of the TVs in the White House are trained to the news at all times. He'll also be heading to an event in West Virginia where he'll be on Air Force One, also full of televisions are trained to his favorite stations. So I think we can expect that he'll be monitoring it. And his tweets and comments in the last several days really indicate how irritated he is that this is all coming back. The President and his allies calling it an attempt by Democrats to have a do over of the Mueller investigation. He emphasized repeatedly in this lengthy speech this morning, that the Mueller investigation found no collusion. And he noted that his Attorney General Bill Barr found that there was no obstruction of justice. So the President is going back to his old talking points on all of this, but trying to make the case that he thinks this is going to be a political loser for the Democrats, saying that he thinks it will all backfire on them. What he would like to talk about instead are these four Democratic Congresswoman, the squad that he has been attacking for many days now and the President continue those attacks this morning, singling out a different Congresswoman.
[Hill:] He has usually talked about Ilhan Omar, now, he's talking about Rashida Tlaib and criticizing her at length in the speech. Listen.
[Donald Trump , President Of United States:] This Tlaib...
[Crowd:] [Booing]
[Trump:] I believe Honestly, I believe they hate our country, okay. I believe they hate our country. Cortez, you know I said I'm not going through them to these four people, the squad
[Crowd:] [Booing]
[Trump:] No, by calling them out because we don't like when they talk about evil Jews.
[Phillip:] So if anybody thought this was going away, they would be very wrong. This has become something of a staple of the President's public appearances in the last several days. And he did not give any indication that he planned to slow down. Those attacks keep coming day after day Erica.
[Hill:] Clearly the President seems to think they are working. Abby Phillip, appreciate it. Abby, thank you, Democrats who will be questioning the former Special Counsel are holding mock hearings today as Manu pointed out, and they've got plenty of history to guide them. Robert Mueller took over as FBI Director one week before the 911 attacks, answering of course, plenty of lawmakers' questions during his nomination hearings. In fact, over the past 12 years, he's testified before Congress roughly 50 times. My next guest watched more than 20 hours of Mueller's past testimony. Darren Samuelsohn is senior White House reporter for POLITICO. Darren, great to have you with us. You learn a lot in watching 20 hours of Robert Mueller testifying and I know, you said too in your piece. One of the most important things is that we watch it, that we all see if it would the sound up because so much of what we seen of Robert Mueller has been video, but we're not listening to him. So I want to get to some of the examples that I know you found the most significant, including pointing out how he's talked about asserting his independence from the DOJ, let's play this.
[Robert Mueller, Russia Probe's Special Counsel:] I'm not precluding the possibility that given the necessary independence of the Bureau in investigation that there might not come a time where one seeks and alternative, where one believes that a political pressure is being brought to bear on the investigative process. That may be somewhere else in the executive, beyond the attorney general, it may be Congress, but I would look and explore it every option if I believe that the FBI was being pressured for political reasons. And if that were the situation as described here, I would explore other alternatives or a variety of alternatives in order to make certain that justice was done.
[Hill:] What do you think that response tells us about how he could handle similar lines of questioning?
[Darren Samuelsohn, Senior White House Reporter For Politico:] Sure, that was back in 2001, as he was preparing to be the FBI director in the context of the Bush administration, where he'd be serving and looking back on the Clinton administration. Clearly, in the course of this investigation, there had been a lot of questions of whether there was any coming from the White House or coming from his Justice Department supervisors. We saw most recently as the report was submitted to the Justice Department, that letter that Robert Mueller sent to Bill Barr indicating that he was not satisfied. He didn't like the way Bill Barr presented the findings in that early conclusion that went out and changed or really directed the narrative of the public disclosure of the of the Mueller report. It gives us a sense, you know, tomorrow as we watch Robert Mueller, and we're watching really closely for any daylight with Bill Barr. Does Robert Miller actually throw, you know, his colleague, his former his longtime friend under the bus and largely some of the ways that Bill Barr did to Robert Miller when he testified up in the senate a couple months ago as well.
[Hill:] It's so interesting to see. We also have this clip from and this is from 2013. So this is Mueller being asked about the Boston Marathon bombings and specifically why the FBI didn't check out a tip that the Tsarnaev brothers had frequented a local mosque, here's that moment.
[Rep. Louie Gohmert:] Why did no one go to the mosque and say, "Who are these guys? They attend may attend here. Why was that not done since such a thorough job was done?"
[Mueller:] Your facts are not all together well...
[Gohmert:] Well, I point out specifically...
[Mueller:] May I finish my...
[Gohmert:] ... point out specifically. Sir, if you're going to call me a liar, you need to point out specifically where any facts are wrong.
[Mueller:] We went to the mosque prior to Boston.
[Gohmert:] Prior to Boston.
[Mueller:] Prior to Boston happening. We were in that mosque talking to imam several months beforehand as part of our outreach efforts.
[Gohmert:] So were you aware that that was a mosque were started by Al Amoudi?
[Mueller:] I have answered the question, sir.
[Hill:] Direct talking about the importance of facts, how much of that you think we'll see tomorrow?
[Samuelsohn:] That's a classic example. I love that clip. As Louie Gohmert, the Texas Republican who is on the Judiciary Committee and will be one of the members that will be questioning Robert Mueller tomorrow. Likely to come at Robert Mueller are some high and tight fastballs I can imagine. And Robert Mueller, if the facts are not there in the question whether they come from Louie Gohmert or any other member of Congress. I think he's going to fact check him. I think he's going to push back. If anything comes at him with respect to the integrity of his staff, the people that he hired, obviously, this has been a long time talking point of the President, talking about the quote-unquote, "Angry Democrats." I think Robert Mueller is going to push back pretty hard and an exchange like that with a Congressman it's not going to be the kind of thing where Robert Mueller, you know, sits back and just takes it. So I think that's maybe the best thing you take away from a clip like that.
[Hill:] We'll have a lot to watch tomorrow. Thanks for doing some of the early watching for us, Darren Samuelsohn, appreciate it. Thank you. And be sure to tune in tomorrow. Live right here on CNN. You can see us former Special Counsel Robert Mueller testifies before Congress. Our special cover begins at 8:00 a.m. Eastern. President Trump spending the day on the attack. You just heard what he had to say to a group of young conservatives earlier. The women who call themselves the squad though not backing down in the face of those continued attacks. Plus, Cory Booker ripping Joe Biden's new criminal justice plan released today. The Senator says, the former VP had 40 years to get this right. Biden campaign responds live. And new fears that a serial killer is targeting victims in Canada. Among those victims and American woman found shot to death along with her boyfriend.