House investigators’ plan to grill former FBI Director Robert Mueller has hit a snag.
The House Oversight Committee was set to have Mueller appear before the panel on Tuesday as part of the House’s probe into Jeffrey Epstein. However, a source familiar with the investigation told Fox News Digital that lawmakers ‘learned that Mr. Mueller has health issues that preclude him from being able to testify.’
‘The committee intends to withdraw its subpoena,’ the source said.
Mueller was one of many notable figures, including the Clintons, who House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., subpoenaed to testify before the panel.
He would have been the second witness appearing in-person before the House Oversight Committee after former Attorney General Bill Barr did so last month.
His closed-door deposition was expected to see at least some lawmakers on both sides attend, with the investigation so far seeing wide bipartisan support in an otherwise highly divided era for Congress.
Mueller was most recently in the headlines for his role as special counsel investigating whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election in favor of President Donald Trump.
That probe, which did not find Trump to have committed any wrongdoing, saw 34 people indicted and eight convictions or guilty pleas, including several people associated with the president.
House investigators were expected to dive into Mueller’s time as director of the FBI. He led the bureau under former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, from September 2001 until September 2013.
It was during that window that the federal government first investigated Epstein, something Comer pointed out in his letter subpoenaing Mueller.
‘When you were FBI Director, an FBI investigation of Mr. Epstein led to an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of Florida preparing a draft 60-count indictment of Mr. Epstein in 2007,’ Comer wrote.
‘However, the next year, Mr. Epstein pled guilty in Florida state court to two prostitution offenses, and, in exchange, he and his co-conspirators received immunity from federal prosecution through a non-prosecution agreement.’
That non-prosecution agreement has been widely criticized and is now the basis for Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell to appeal her conviction and 20-year prison sentence before the Supreme Court.
It’s not clear how much of a role Mueller would have had in that agreement. Alexander Acosta, the former Trump labor secretary and U.S. attorney in Florida who signed off on the deal, is sitting down with the House Oversight Committee for a voluntary transcribed interview later this month.
Comer sent out a flurry of subpoenas last month in relation to the Epstein probe.
Other figures also compelled to appear after Mueller are former FBI Director James Comey, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and ex-first couple Bill and Hillary Clinton.
