Robert Mueller’s FBI Career: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

Robert Mueller speaks at the International Conference on Cyber Security on August 8, 2013 in New York City. (Getty)

Robert Mueller testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee during a oversight hearing on Capitol Hill December 14, 2011 in Washington, DC. (Getty)

“Given the ongoing threats facing the United States, as well as the leadership transitions at other agencies like the Defense Department and Central Intelligence Agency, I believe continuity and stability at the FBI is critical at this time,” Obama said at the time. “I am grateful for his leadership, and ask Democrats and Republicans in Congress to join together in extending that leadership for the sake of our nation’s safety and security.”

Mueller ultimately left the FBI in 2013, and so he served for 12 years. This made him the second longest serving FBI director in history, second only to J. Edgar Hoover, who served for 36 years before the term limit was introduced.

Mueller was replaced by James Comey, who served for almost four years before being fired by President Donald Trump.

2. He Helped Reshape the FBI After 9/11

Robert Mueller testifies during a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee June 13, 2013 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. (Getty)

Robert Mueller became director of the FBI just a week before 9/11. In the subsequent years, he helped reshape the FBI, dramatically expanding it and transforming it from a domestic force to a counterintelligence service.

Mueller told The Washington Post that he did not expect to be in charge of leading counterintelligence operations.

“I love prosecuting cases, and I love doing investigations, particularly homicide investigations and the like, and that’s why I became a prosecutor,” he said. “I did not expect to be spending my time preventing terrorist attacks.”

Mueller said in a 2013 interview with CNN that if the NSA had been collecting all of the intelligence it does today before 9/11, the attack may have been prevented.

“I think there’s a good chance we would have prevented at least a part of 9/11,” he said. “In other words, there were four planes. There were almost 20 — 19 persons involved. I think we would have had a much better chance of identifying those individuals who were contemplating that attack.”

3. He Threatened to Resign in March 2004

Robert Mueller speaks during a news conference at the FBI headquarters June 25, 2008 in Washington, DC. (Getty)

In 2004, Robert Mueller was prepared to resign from the FBI.

This took place after the Justice Department found that domestic wiretapping without a warrant was unconstitutional. According to The Washington Post, in March of 2004, Attorney General John Ashcroft was in intensive care, and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and Chief of Staff Andrew Card Jr. planned to visit him in this state and convince him to reauthorize the domestic surveillance programs. This is what convinced Mueller and then Deputy Attorney General James Comey that they would have to resign if this were to happen.

“The sickbed visit was the start of a dramatic showdown between the White House and the Justice Department in early 2004 that, according to Comey, was resolved only when Bush overruled Gonzales and Card,” The Washington Post reported. “But that was not before Ashcroft, Comey, Mueller and their aides prepared a mass resignation, Comey said. The domestic spying by the National Security Agency continued for several weeks without Justice approval, he said.”

Comey also later went on the record in saying this incident made him extremely angry.

“I was angry,” Comey said, according to the Washington Post. “I thought I just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man, who did not have the powers of the attorney general because they had been transferred to me.”

Mueller has since pushed back against the idea that civil liberties have been encroached upon by the NSA’s surveillance.

“Do we exchange information in ways we did not before? Absolutely,” Mueller told CNN in 2013. “You can say that that is a — to the extent that you exchange information between CIA, FBI, NSA and the like — you could characterize that as somehow giving up liberties. But the fact of the matter is, it’s understandable and absolutely necessary if you want to protect the security of the United States. ”

4. The Boston Marathon Bombing Occurred Months Before His Retirement

Robert Mueller arrives for a memorial service for the Pan Am Flight 103 Lockerbie bombing at Arlington National Cemetery December 21, 2011 in Arlington, Virginia. (Getty)

In 2013, following the Boston Marathon bombing, it was revealed that the FBI had interviewed and closed the subject on Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the suspects in the case.

This came just months ahead of Mueller’s planned retirement, and The New York Times reported on this as a stain on his reputation in an article titled “Bombings Make a Bitter Bookend for F.B.I.’s Director.”

“Now, Mr. Mueller’s 12-year tenure under two presidents is facing scrutiny, months from his longtime plans to step down in September, as hearings begin on Capitol Hill into what happened in Boston and why,” The New York Times Reported.

Mueller later said in an interview with CNN that there are a few things that the FBI could have done differently in retrospect, but he’s not sure any of this would have prevented the attack.

“Probably not,” Mueller said when asked if the FBI could have prevented the bombing. “It’s all speculation…We are pretty good at what we do at this point. And so in the future, it may be if you have other attacks, that person may have been on our radar screen. But everybody who comes on our radar screen, we cannot investigate, indict and prosecute.”

5. Before He Left the FBI, He Said He Worried About a Cyberattack

Robert Meuller attends the swearing-in of James Comey. (Getty)

On his way out of the FBI, Robert Mueller said in interview that he was concerned the U.S. would in the future experience a massive cyberattack. In fact, he told NPR that this would soon overtake Al-Qaeda as the FBI’s biggest priority.

“Before we have a substantial incident which would serve as a wake-up call, we need to do everything we can to prevent that happening,” he told NPR.

Mueller also pointed to this in an interview with CNN, saying a cyberattack would be devastating for the United States.

“A cyber attack would be devastating, on the financial institutions, for instance…It could be hospitals, it could be infrastructure, it could be the energy infrastructure,” he said. “But now we are aware of these potential targets and DHS, ourselves, the NSA, DOD, are all making preparations to prevent that from happening. But an attack will probably slip through at some point in time.”