ON THE DEATH OF ROBERT S. MUELLER III

I was set to push the publish button on an article about former FBI Director James Comey and 129 others being subpoenaed by a federal grand jury in Florida last week, supposedly related to Russia collusion and/or the search of Mar a Largo, when news of former FBI Director Robert Mueller’s death was announced. I will save that article for later in the week, and comment here on Mueller’s passing.

Last year I wrote a series of articles on the modern FBI Directors, two of which were about Mueller’s tenure. If you did not see them, you can read them here. They are much more detailed than my comments below.

I mention up front in the first article, which needs repeating here, that I knew and worked for Mueller for ten years. He personally promoted me twice. I didn’t know him well, (nobody did - he didn’t have typical friends,) and he could be prickly in person. But I had enormous respect for him as a man and an FBI Director.

I lamented in these articles, and on social media this weekend, that I’m sorry Mueller’s legacy will be that of his final assignment as Special Counsel overseeing the Russia collusion investigation. We saw at the end of that investigation when he testified in front of Congress that he was clearly ill, and not in command of his own investigation and/or report.

We learned early on that Mueller’s team was largely made up of Hillary Clinton acolytes led by Andrew Weissmann. Weissmann was famously seen in the front row of the Jacob Javits Center in New York on election night of 2020 awaiting Clinton’s victory speech that was not to be. He was hardly neutral on Donald Trump. Many believe it was Weissmann, and not Mueller, who ran the Special Counsel investigation.

While I liked and respected Mueller, I thought one of his flaws as Director was an over-reliance on non-special agent attorneys in his inner circle on the 7th floor. Weissmann was one of them. As was Lisa Monaco and others who ultimately did not serve him well. It was a tradition started under Louie Freeh and it has not served the Bureau well.

The Russia collusion Special Counsel investigation was a sad coda to an otherwise remarkable life and career. A fellow former agent posted on social media a quote from Batman - The Dark Knight, of all places that I think is apropos: “You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”

Sadly, many of my fellow conservatives on social media have joined President Trump in celebrating Mueller’s death. One prominent voice on X (formally Twitter) with millions of followers who often posts about his Christianity, wrote he hopes Mueller is burning in hell. He must have missed the “Vengeance is mine: I will repay, says the Lord,” lesson in Sunday school.

Trump posted, “Good. I’m glad he’s dead.”

I’m sorry, but that is beneath the dignity of the President of the United States to say about any American. The President could have just said nothing.

I wrote in one of the above articles about Mueller last year that he was a Marine veteran who volunteered for service in Vietnam after one of his fellow lacrosse teammates at Princeton was killed in action the year before. He was moved by his teammate’s sacrifice and wanted to honor his service. Mueller was wounded in combat and received the Purple Heart. He was also awarded a Bronze Star with Valor for saving a mortally wounded Marine under his command during a firefight.

Trump has a weird relationship with the military by often praising the troops in total, but maligning individual veterans when it suits his purpose. Such as when he said John McCain was only a war hero because he was captured. “I like people who weren’t captured,” he said in 2015. He praised his own pick for Secretary of Defense General James Mattis as “Mad Dog Mattis,” and later maligned him as “The world’s most overrated general.”

Very odd for somebody who compared avoiding contracting STDs in the 1970s to “My own personal Vietnam.”

Many critics ignore the fact that Robert Mueller was perhaps the most non-controversial figure in overly political Washington, D.C. for the first 90% of his career. Many of the loudest voices today, knew nothing about him until after his 2017 appointment as Special Counsel.

Mueller was confirmed by the Senate as FBI Director 98-0 in 2001. When President Obama, (who didn’t initially appoint him, G.W. Bush did,) asked Congress to extend his term for an unprecedented two more years in 2011, the vote was 100-0. Fifteen years later, Congress can’t even agree on whether TSA agents should get paid for a month while they argue about immigration.

With the exception of his becoming ill, I submit that Mueller didn’t change, we did.

And people, including Trump, ignore that President Trump had a role in Mueller’s appointment. The day before Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Mueller Special Council, Mueller was in the Oval Office being considered to again become FBI chief after Trump had fired James Comey. Trump could have hardly considered him an adversary if he was considering him for the job.

Rosenstein was Trump’s DAG, Jeff Sessions was his Attorney General. Sessions had earlier recused himself from anything Russia collusion related. Conservatives, like me, often talk about the unitary theory of the executive in the Constitution. It cuts both ways - this was Trump’s DOJ.

And since there was (and is) no special counsel statute, not only did Trump not have to appoint Mueller (or anybody,) but he could have fired him at any time too. Many will say, “No, he could not. It would have been political suicide. He would have been impeached.” Really? How did not firing Mueller work out for him on the impeachment front? He was impeached twice.

Trump had a lot of enemies in Washington, D.C. in early 2017, Robert Mueller wasn’t one of them.

Robert Mueller was born into privilege. He went to private schools and Ivy League universities. He married into even more money. He could have spent his life as a man of leisure playing golf or running for political office. Instead, he was a Marine, an assistant U.S. Attorney, the U.S. Attorney twice, a line homicide prosecutor, a senior DOJ official, FBI Director, and then sadly, Special Counsel.

Lastly, with half the country wishing his immortal soul ill, the Bob Mueller I knew would be the last one to care what anybody except his wife, daughters, and grandchildren thought of his death.

Godspeed.

This is the portion of my newsletter where I usually promote what I’m working on in my novels. I will dispense with that today.