Robert Mueller obituary | Robert Mueller

Robert Mueller, who has died aged 81, led an investigation, as US special adviser, into Russian interference in the 2016 White House elections and its alleged collusion with Donald Trump’s campaign team. Trump was furious about the investigation, which lasted two years and dominated much of his first term as president. He repeatedly called it a “witch hunt.”

Mueller’s report, released in 2019, was inconclusive. He discovered ties between Russians and those around Trump, and that his presidential bid benefited from Russian leaks that undermined the Democratic campaign. But he failed to establish collusion on the part of the Trump campaign.

He cited 10 episodes in which Trump and his aides could have obstructed his investigation. This could have led to an indictment, but Mueller delivered a verdict that was fundamentally unproven. In the report’s most controversial and damning passage, he wrote: “While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it does not exonerate him either. »

Mueller built a reputation for integrity as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 2001 to 2013. He stood up to President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney when, following the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington, they tolerated increased surveillance of American citizens as well as the use of torture against suspected terrorists.

Before taking over the FBI, he held senior positions in the prosecution of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega and mob boss John Gotti.

He led the American side of the investigation into the Pan Am plane bombing that exploded over Lockerbie.

in 1988.

The investigation into Russia and the Trump campaign would prove to be the most politically explosive of his career. He had retired from the FBI for four years and was succeeded by James Comey. While investigating alleged ties to Russia, Comey was fired by Trump. Mueller was appointed in 2017 by the attorney general’s office to lead an investigation into the alleged collusion. For the next two years, his investigation dominated Washington politics.

The report reveals that Russia intervened in a “comprehensive and systemic” manner. But it “did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

Attorney General William Barr did not initially release the entire report, but only selected highlights. His watered-down version allowed Trump to claim, falsely, that he had been completely exonerated. Mueller was frustrated that Barr left out critical aspects of the investigation and created public confusion about the findings.

The investigation led to indictments against Russian spies, Russian hackers and former Trump advisers. Among them were former campaign manager Paul Manafort, who was imprisoned on fraud charges, and Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying about a conversation with a Russian ambassador to the United States. Both were pardoned by Trump in 2020.

Mueller, a Republican, was appointed by Bush to head the FBI in 2001. When he reached the end of the ten-year statutory limit, Bush’s successor, Barack Obama, impressed by Mueller’s record, extended his tenure for two more years.

He had only been at the FBI seven days when al-Qaeda sent planes to targets in New York and Washington. Bush and Cheney condoned the use of what the administration euphemistically called “enhanced interrogation techniques,” such as simulated drowning and other forms of torture against suspected terrorists. Mueller distanced the FBI from this affair. While the CIA tortured suspects, Mueller barred his agency from participating. He said he did not believe in coercion and ordered FBI agents to leave the room if they saw suspects being tortured.

In another panicked response to the September 11 attacks, the Bush administration agreed to expand domestic surveillance, in violation of the Constitution. When warrantless wiretaps were renewed in 2004, Mueller threatened to resign and Bush and Cheney were forced to back down.

But when National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden

revealed mass surveillance of American citizens in 2013, Mueller, testifying before Congress, defended the NSA on the grounds that such surveillance could have stopped the September 11 attacks.

During his tenure as director, he oversaw a major internal shakeup and modernization of the office in direct response to the September 11 attacks. It recruited agents with a wide range of language and IT skills. One of the most important changes has been increased cooperation and coordination with other agencies, particularly in information sharing; One of the criticisms leveled at US intelligence services in the run-up to the events of 2001 was the way in which different agencies were compartmentalized, each holding information. His 12 years in the post made him the longest-serving director since the first incumbent, J Edgar Hoover.

He was born in New York to Robert Swan Mueller, an executive at the DuPont chemical company, and Alice (née Truesdale). He was educated in Princeton, New Jersey, then boarded at St. Paul’s, New Hampshire, before attending Princeton University, where he received a bachelor’s degree in politics in 1966, and then New York University, where he received a master’s degree in international relations.

He joined the U.S. Marines and was assigned as a second lieutenant in Vietnam, where he received a Bronze Star for valor after rescuing a wounded comrade under fire and a Purple Heart after being shot in the thigh. He left the marines in 1970 with the rank of captain.

Enrolling in law at the University of Virginia and graduating in 1973, he worked as a trial lawyer in a law firm for a few years, then held a series of positions in U.S. attorneys’ offices in California and Washington, D.C., becoming acting assistant attorney general of the United States.

He has been involved in landmark cases such as the prosecution of Gotti, the head of the Gambino family, one of the largest crime syndicates in the United States. Gotti, known as Teflon Don and Dapper Don, was convicted in 1992 of murder and racketeering.

Other high-profile cases include the prosecution of Noriega, who had been a U.S. ally against left-wing groups in Central America and who was imprisoned on drug trafficking, racketeering and money laundering charges.

The Lockerbie affair was one of the most complicated because it involved coordination not only with the CIA and British intelligence services but also with the Scottish Police, Lockerbie falling under its jurisdiction. A Libyan, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, was indicted in 1991 and the case took place in a Scottish court built especially for the trial at a former US airbase in the Netherlands. Megrahi was convicted and imprisoned.

Mueller married Ann Standish in 1966. She survives him, as do their two children, Melissa and Cynthia.