Robert Mueller, ex-FBI director who led 2016 Russia inquiry, dies : NPR
Special Counsel Robert Mueller speaks at the Justice Department Wednesday, May 29, 2019, in Washington, regarding the Russia investigation.
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Carolyn Kaster/AP
Robert Mueller, the former FBI director and special counsel who led the high-profile investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible obstruction of justice by President Trump, died Friday at age 81.
“It is with deep sadness that we share the news of Bob’s passing,” his family said in a statement shared Saturday with NPR. No cause of death was given.
Mueller was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease four years ago, his family said. The New York Times in August.
Trump, who openly despised Mueller and his investigation, celebrated his death on Saturday.
“Good, I’m glad he’s dead,” the president posted on social media. “He can’t hurt innocent people anymore!” WilmerHale, the law firm where Mueller was a partner, remembers Mueller as a “friend” who was “an extraordinary leader and public servant and a person of the highest integrity.”
“His service to our country, including as a decorated officer in the Marine Corps, as director of the FBI, and to the Department of Justice, has been exemplary and inspiring,” a spokesperson for WilmerHale told NPR in a statement. “We are deeply proud that he was our partner. Our thoughts are with Bob’s family and loved ones during this time.”
Path to public service
Born August 7, 1944, in New York, Mueller grew up in Philadelphia and graduated from Princeton University in 1966. He received a master’s degree in international relations from New York University.
Mueller, throughout his career, has encountered difficult assignments. Following the lead of a classmate at Princeton, Mueller enlisted in the Marines and served in the Vietnam War. He received the Bronze Star for rescuing a colleague. Mueller said he felt compelled to serve during that conflict, an idea he returned to throughout his life.
Rory Little, a law professor and former Justice Department lawyer, had known Mueller for many years.
“Bob is kind of a straight arrow, you know, wounded in Vietnam,” Little said. “You keep wanting to look for where the crack in that facade is: ‘Where is the real Bob Mueller?’ – and after a while you start to realize that this is the real Bob Mueller. He is exactly who he appears to be. This kind of sour-faced guy, without much humor, who only cares about business. It’s him.”
But with his closest friends, Mueller let his guard down. They teased that Mueller would have made an excellent drill instructor on Parris Island, where Marine recruits are trained.
Instead, Mueller went to law school at the University of Virginia. He joined the Justice Department in 1976. There, he prosecuted crimes large and small on behalf of U.S. attorneys in San Francisco and Boston. He was a partner at Hale and Dorr, a Boston law firm now known as WilmerHale.
He then became a senior trial attorney prosecuting homicides in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, DC.
Chief of the FBI
In 2001, President George W. Bush appointed him director of the FBI. Mueller was sworn in a week before the September 11 terrorist attacks.
“I had already been a prosecutor, so I had planned to spend time on public corruption cases, narcotics cases, bank robberies, etc. And 9/11 changed all that,” Mueller told NPR in a 2013 interview.
He shifted the office’s focus to counterterrorism. He headed the headquarters in Washington. He pushed these officers to try to predict crimes and act before another tragedy occurred.
“He led and implemented what are arguably the most significant changes in the 105-year history of the FBI,” said his former FBI deputy, John Pistole.
Along the way, Mueller drew some criticism when his agents made a mistake. During the investigation into the deadly anthrax attacks, the bureau focused on the wrong man as the prime suspect.
Mueller left the office in 2013.
Return to the national spotlight
After Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, Mueller was appointed in May 2017 by then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein as special counsel to oversee the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible ties to Trump associates.
Trump called the investigation a “witch hunt” and congressional Republicans began attacking the investigators.
When the investigation finally concluded in March 2019 with the more than 400-page “Mueller Report,” the special prosecutor said the investigation did not establish that the Trump campaign or its associates colluded with the Russian government to influence the 2016 election. The report does not take a position on whether Trump obstructed justice.
Mueller said the report speaks for itself. But Democrats wanted more and insisted he testify. A reluctant witness, Mueller once again fulfills his duty. He was visibly older than at the time of his appointment and held his testimony with restraint.
He said Justice Department guidelines would not allow him to charge a sitting president with criminal acts. But he also refused to exonerate Trump.
“If we had been confident that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so,” Mueller told Congress.
Ultimately, the team indicted 37 individuals and entities, including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, national security adviser Michael Flynn and 25 Russians.
Trump later granted pardons or recused himself from criminal cases against many of the people indicted by Mueller’s investigators.
