Frustrated House Democrats Pin Their Hopes on Mueller

House Democrats, frustrated by President Trump’s efforts to stonewall their investigations and eager to stoke public anger about the president’s behavior, are pinning their diminishing hopes on Robert S. Mueller III yet again.

They had a plan: dramatize the special counsel’s damning but dense report on national television in their committees, animating his prose with vivid testimony from witnesses who would discuss Mr. Mueller’s findings on Russia’s election interference and Mr. Trump’s possible obstruction of justice.

But so far Mr. Trump and his allies have successfully parried every one of their moves. Donald F. McGahn II, the former White House counsel and a central player in the story, is expected to either flout a subpoena to testify before the House Judiciary Committee next Tuesday or refuse to answer questions. The White House has claimed executive privilege over the unredacted Mueller report and all the evidence underlying its 448 pages, and administration officials refuse to satisfy virtually any other request — setting up months, possibly years, of legal wrangling.

Mr. Mueller, who was invited to testify by the chairmen of the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees a month ago, has not agreed to do so.

His absence has left a disappointed House majority with little option but to stage political theatrics like Thursday’s 12-hour reading of the entire redacted Mueller report in a hideaway Capitol committee room before a few reporters, a guest appearance by the liberal activist actor John Cusack and the unblinking eye of a C-Span camera.

“We cannot count on anyone but Mueller to tell us what he was thinking, and it should not be filtered through anyone else — seeing is believing, hearing is believing,” said Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, adding that a “sterile report” was no substitute for either Mr. Mueller or Mr. McGahn.