Who is Robert Mueller?

By Eli Watkins, CNN

Updated 2026 GMT (0426 HKT) April 17, 2019

Washington (CNN)Robert Mueller came to the job of special counsel as a retired

lawman who was no stranger to high-profile investigative roles. He leaves it a
household name, whose reputation preceded him long before he was asked to
lead the Russia investigation and whose every available word will be scrutinized
after nearly two years of closely-held work.

And on Thursday, the public is expected to see the release of a redacted version
of Mueller's special counsel report on President Donald Trump and Russian
interference in the 2016 election, a moment that will mark the culmination of this
latest act in Mueller's decades-long legal career.

Vietnam to law enforcement

Born in 1944, Mueller joined the Marines in 1966 and fought in the Vietnam War.
He was awarded a Bronze Star, a Purple Heart, the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry
and two Navy Commendation Medals.

Mueller attended Princeton University for his undergraduate degree, New York
University for an M.A. and the University of Virginia for his law degree. After
graduation, he became an associate attorney at a law firm before joining the US
attorney's office in the Northern District of California. He rose through the ranks
of the Justice Department over the years, with stints in the private sector before
coming back to the Justice Department under the homicide section of the office
for the US attorney in DC and then again becoming a US attorney in the late
1990s.

Mueller found himself in some of the most well-known cases of his time, from
overseeing the prosecutions of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega and Mafia
kingpin John Gotti to leading an investigation into the Lockerbie bombing.

Director Mueller
President George W. Bush tapped Mueller to lead the FBI shortly into his
presidency, and Mueller was confirmed unanimously in a Senate vote of 98-0,
taking over the FBI just days before September 11, 2001.

As a member of the Bush administration, Mueller was a key leader on post-9/11

security policy, and like other top Bush administration officials, he testified before
Congress in the lead up to the Iraq War, saying he was concerned Iraqi leader
Saddam Hussein "may supply terrorists with biological, chemical or radiological
material."

Post-9/11 surveillance programs would later become a flashpoint following the

disclosures by Edward Snowden, and in an exit interview with CNN, Mueller
offered a broad defense of their collection methods.

But while still on the job, Mueller found himself in a major dispute about
domestic spying, when he backed then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey in
a fight with the White House over renewal of a surveillance program. In 2007,
Comey delivered bombshell testimony before Congress about the 2004 dispute
and praised Mueller as "one of the finest people" he had ever met. Mueller's
notes from the time backed up Comey's account, and in response to a records
request from The New York Times, documents showed Bush made some changes
to authorize the surveillance program following the showdown Comey and
Mueller had with the White House officials.

Mueller was so highly regarded on both sides of the aisle that when the end of his
ten-year term as director came, then-President Barack Obama took the rare step
of asking Mueller to stay on, and the Senate obliged in a unanimous vote of 100-
0. The extension made Mueller the longest-serving FBI director since its infamous
leader, J. Edgar Hoover. At the end of the extension, Obama tapped Mueller's old
Bush administration colleague, Comey, to take over the FBI.

Special counsel
And the rest is very recent history.

A few weeks after Trump took office, Comey confirmed the existence of an
investigation into coordination between Trump's campaign or associates and
Russia to interfere in the 2016 election. Trump went on to fire Comey as FBI
director in May 2017. It emerged shortly thereafter that Comey kept
contemporaneous memos of his private conversations with Trump, who Comey
alleged pressured him on ongoing FBI investigations (Trump denied the
allegations and has long boasted about firing Comey, who Trump calls a liar).

The revelation led to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointing Mueller
to lead a special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016
election and other crimes uncovered in the course of the investigation, which
included looking into potential obstruction of justice by Trump.

Mueller brought on a team of investigators, including some very well-known

prosecutors, to handle the massive investigation and worked in intense secrecy
for the duration of his time as special counsel.

Mueller's appointment was initially met with bipartisan praise, but Trump and his
allies regularly went after Mueller and his team as politically biased and
conducting a "witch hunt." The special counsel team brought charges against 37
people and entities, and concluded its work in March 2019. Attorney General
William Barr said Mueller authored a nearly 400-page long report, interviewed
about 500 witnesses and "made 13 requests to foreign governments for
evidence."

In his initial summary of Mueller's report, Barr said the special counsel did not
find a conspiracy between Trump's associates or campaign and the Russian
government, and he said Mueller left open the question of obstruction of justice,
which he concluded Mueller did not find sufficient evidence to support.

After weeks of back-and-forth between Barr and Congress, the Justice

Department said it expects to provide a redacted version of Mueller's report this
Thursday.

As for Mueller, his job as special counsel will be done, and the 74-year-old former
FBI director can move on, although there's always the possibility he will have to
go back to Capitol Hill and speak to the public for the first time about his work.

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