Robert Mueller, who led the Federal Bureau of Investigation for more than a decade after the September 11 attacks and was later appointed to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election, has died. He was 81.
Mueller’s family, who confirmed the news to The New York Times, did not share a cause of death. The family announced last year that Mueller had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in 2021.
Mueller was appointed special counsel in the wake of President Donald Trump’s abrupt firing of former FBI Director James Comey in 2017.
Trump initially considered tapping Mueller to serve as FBI director after his upset victory in the 2016 election, but was barred from doing so as Mueller had already reached his term limit. In 2017, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein tapped Mueller to serve as special counsel overseeing the investigation into allegations of Russian meddling into the 2016 election. Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the investigation, as he had met with Russia’s ambassador on multiple occasions during the campaign.
The appointment was initially well received across partisan lines. Mueller, a lifelong Republican, was seen as the ideal pick to handle a sensitive investigation into the campaign activities of a sitting president. The investigation lasted just under two years.
Investigators’ final report, published in March 2019, concluded that the “Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion,” and had favored the Trump campaign and attacked the candidacy of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Mueller concluded that while the Trump campaign had expected to benefit from hacks against Democratic entities and other Russian efforts to influence the election, “the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
On the issue of whether the Trump administration was guilty of obstruction of justice, the basis of the second half of the report, Mueller’s team was very critical of the president’s actions, summed up memorably: “While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”
While the overall conclusion of the report cleared the campaign at large of criminal wrongdoing, 34 individuals, including seven Americans — among them close affiliates of the Trump campaign — were indicted in relation to the probe. Most notably, retired General Michael Flynn, political operative Roger Stone, former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, and Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort were indicted on charges including making false statements to investigators and lawmakers, witness tampering, and conspiracy against the United States.
The investigation and subsequent indictment became a flashpoint for Trump and the MAGA movement, who cast Mueller and federal investigators as the executors of a “witch hunt” and deep-state plot to undermine his administration. Trump has continued to attack Mueller in the years since the investigation, painting the Republican Purple Heart recipient as a corrupt agent of a Democratic conspiracy. The president delighted in the news that Mueller had died, writing on Truth Social: “Good, I’m glad he’s dead.”
Mueller was born in New York City, the son of a DuPont executive. He attended Princeton and obtained a master’s degree in international relations at New York University before joining the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War, where he was awarded the Bronze Star for valor, and a Purple Heart. After serving in Vietnam, Mueller pursued a career in law. He worked as federal prosecutor and briefly in private practice before joining the Department of Justice, where he rose to chief of the criminal division. In that role, Mueller oversaw the prosecution of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega and investigated the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.
In September 2001, one week before the 9/11 attacks, Mueller was appointed director of the FBI. In the 12 years Mueller spent atop the agency, the FBI revealed the existence of blacksites being used by the CIA for torture prisoners, and the NSA’s illegal warantless wiretapping program. Mueller famously threatened to resign from the agency after President George W. Bush reauthorized the illegal eavesdropping program. Bush ultimately blinked, putting the program on ice rather than accepting his resignation. The story became part of Mueller’s mythology, cited as evidence of his unimpeachable character when he was appointed to investigate Trump.
