Ex FBI boss, Trump investigator Robert Mueller dead
Former FBI chief Robert Mueller, who documented Russia’s interference in the 2016 US election and contacts with Donald Trump’s campaign but chose not to file criminal charges against the sitting president, has died at the age of 81, multiple news outlets reported.
His death was reported by a New York Times journalist who released a statement attributed to MS NOW and the Mueller family. The cause of death of Mueller, a Vietnam War veteran who led the FBI after the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, was not disclosed.
The New York Times reported last year that Mueller had Parkinson’s disease.
Mueller retired in 2013 after 12 years as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but was called back into public service four years later by a senior Justice Department official as a special counsel to take over the investigation into Russian election interference after Trump fired then-FBI chief James Comey.
Mueller conducted a 22-month investigation that included indictments and a series of criminal charges and convictions against 34 people, including several Trump employees, as well as Russian intelligence officers and three Russian companies. Mueller ultimately stopped short of bringing criminal charges against the Republican president, bitterly disappointing many Democrats.
Trump celebrated Mueller’s passing on Saturday. “Good, glad he’s dead,” Trump wrote on the site Truth Social.
“He can’t hurt innocent people anymore!”
Throughout his career as a prosecutor and FBI chief, Mueller has displayed a patrician demeanor and sometimes hard-boiled personality, in stark contrast to the over-the-top Trump. He was known to some as “Three-Stick Bobby”, from his full name, Robert Mueller III; this nickname belied his formal demeanor and sober approach towards law enforcement.
The Russia investigation, detailed in a 448-page 2019 report, uncovered what Mueller and U.S. intelligence agencies described as a Russian hacking and propaganda campaign aimed at sowing discord in the United States, smearing 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and boosting the Kremlin’s preferred candidate, Trump. Russia denied interfering in the election.
“First, our investigation revealed extensive and systematic interference by the Russian government in our elections,” Mueller said in congressional testimony in 2019.
“Second, the investigation … focused on whether the evidence was sufficient to charge any member of (Trump’s) campaign with participating in a criminal conspiracy. It was not,” Mueller said. he added.
“The President has not been acquitted of the acts he is alleged to have committed.”
Mueller, a longtime Republican, has faced sustained attacks on his integrity from Trump and his allies, who have sought to discredit the investigation and the special counsel. Trump used social media, news media speeches and comments to attack Mueller, accusing him of waging a politically motivated “rigged witch hunt.”
“This is all a big hoax,” Trump said in 2019.
“This was certainly not a hoax,” Mueller said at the congressional hearing, noting the multiple charges stemming from the investigation.
Mueller, who was appointed head of the FBI by Republican President George W. Bush, took over as director of the FBI a week before the attacks of Al Qaeda militants on the United States using hijacked planes on September 11, killing approximately 3,000 people. Democratic President Barack Obama later extended Mueller’s appointment. When Mueller left office, his tenure had been surpassed only by J Edgar Hoover’s 48 years in office.
