WATCH: Robert Mueller contradicts his own report, stumbles through bias questions at hearing

At a long-awaited public hearing before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Robert Muller appeared to have a hard time answering questions about his own special counsel's report and political bias on his team when questioned by Republicans on the panel.

During an early exchange with top committee Republican Doug Collins, Ga., Mueller appeared to contradict his public report before eventually siding with it on the question of whether or not the terms "collusion" and "conspiracy" are synonymous.

During an early exchange with top committee Republican Doug Collins, Ga., Mueller appeared to contradict his public report before eventually siding with it on the question of whether or not the terms “collusion” and “conspiracy” are synonymous. Mueller said they aren't. Collins then pointed him to a section of his own report that says the terms are synonymous.

"You said at your May 29 press conference, and here today, you choose your words carefully," Collins asked. "Are you sitting here today testifying something different than what your report states?"

When Mueller asked Collins to give him the citation, the ranking member responded: "You stated that you would stay within the report. I just stated your report back to you and you said that collusion and conspiracy were not synonymous terms." before reading from the relevant portion of the report.

"You said you chose your words carefully," Collins then asked. "Are you contradicting your report right now?" Collins asked.

"Not when I read it," Mueller answered.

"So, you would change your answer to 'yes' then?" Collins asked.

"No, if you look at the language," Mueller said, before stammering, trailing off, clarifying the relevant page of the report and eventually saying "I leave it with the report."

For reference, here's the relevant section of the Mueller report:

In a separate exchange with Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, Mueller once again appeared off-balance when asked whether or not he knew about disgraced former FBI employee Peter Strzok's anti-Trump animus before bringing him onto the Russia probe team.

"Most prosecutors want to make sure there's no appearance of impropriety," Gohmert prefaced his line of questioning, "but in your case, you hired a bunch of people that did not like the president."

Gohmert asked Muller when he first learned of Strzok's anti-Trump animus. Mueller answered that he found out during the summer of 2017.

"You didn't know before before he was hired for your team?" Gohmert asked.

"Know what?" Mueller responded.

"Peter Strzok hated Trump," Gohmert clarified loudly and slowly. "You didn't know that before he was made part of your team."

"I did not know that," Mueller eventually answered, "and when I did find out I did act swiftly" to reassign him elsewhere, Muller said.

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