Robert Mueller Investigation

Introduction Robert Mueller was appointed by George W.

Bush to serve a ten year term as the 6th Director of the FBI from 2001 to 2013 (Obama granted him a two year extension).  Today, appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Mueller is heading the Special Counsel investigation into the long-standing claim that Russia “hacked” the 2016 presidential elections, though the investigation has been said to be more wide ranging than that (Mondics, 2017).  This paper will provide information on who Mueller is, what the investigation is all about, why it was initiated, and what the latest news on it has revealed.

Background Robert Mueller was born in New York City in 1944.  His father worked for DuPont and had served in the Navy during WWII.  Mueller’s boyhood was spent in Princeton, New Jersey and at St.

Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire.  Mueller attended Princeton University, took a BA in politics, earned an MA in International Relations at New York University in 1967, joined the Marines in 1968, and served with distinction in Vietnam as a platoon leader.  Following the completion of his service in the Marines, Mueller went to the University of Virginia School of Law and took his law degree in 1973 (Lamothe, 2018). As Director of the FBI in 2003, Mueller supported the justification for the U.S.

attack on Iraq, which was based on faulty intelligence (Shenon, 2003).  Mueller himself was warned that the invasion would accomplish little but cost much in terms of lives and potential future blowback and was urged to share these concerns with President Bush.  Instead, Mueller maintained his silence and the whistleblower went public, which cast Mueller in onerous light (Shenon, 2003).  Mueller was also a proponent of warrantless wiretapping and defended the NSA surveillance programs, which came under fire following the revelation of Edward Snowden who blew the whistle on NSA overreach and surveillance of U.S.

citizen (Mayer, 2009).  Mueller personally believed Snowden should be held responsible for his leaks (Reuters, 2013).

As a man, Mueller has demonstrated both honor as a platoon leader in Vietnam and a willingness to tow the company line even in the face of warnings from individual whistleblowers making warnings about breeches of justice.  His character has been both lauded and questioned.  He oversaw the prosecutions of members of the Gambino crime family in the 1990s (Blum, 2017), but also supported the erroneous decision to invade Iraq and defended the widespread abuse of surveillance powers conducted by the FBI.  This was the man appointed to head the investigation into the 2016 presidential election.

What is the Investigation? Mueller was appointed to head the investigation into Russian interference in the election of President Trump.  Accusations were swirling that Trump and Russia colluded to steal the election from Hillary Clinton.  However, there is a great deal of politics underlying the investigation, and the fact that it has indeed become a wide ranging investigation with little thus far to show for it after a year of being conducted suggests that the investigation has either come up empty or has deviated  off course to a significant extent.

For instance, Trump’s layer Cohen’s office was recently raided by FBI, yet it is unclear the confiscation of Cohen’s records are in relation to the Russian hacking investigation, to a scandal involving a porn star named Stormy Daniels, or to something else that has not yet been made public.  Moreover, since the House Intel committee has essentially shifted its focus away from the Trump Administration and is now examining several members of the FBI and the Justice Department investing collusion between these agencies and the DNC to steal the election for Hillary Clinton it appears to some that the Mueller investigation is running on fumes.

Fired Director Comey leaked the contents of his meetings with Trump to the press in hopes of stirring up a controversy (which they did).  Comey wanted to show that Trump had pressed him for loyalty—and though this was not a direct indication or admission of collusion Rosenstein apparently felt it was—and Attorney General Sessions had already stepped aside to avoid accusations of a conflict of interest.  Mueller, however, has shown no interest in avoiding the same accusations.

As a result, the Mueller investigation continues in order to set the record straight on whether Russia colluded with Trump to steal the election from Clinton, or whether there are other issues at stake here that need to be investigated.  In short, Mueller appears to be looking for anything that he can hang on Trump or his associates over the course of this investigation.  Why the Investigation? One piece of information that helped spur on the investigation comes courtesy of a largely-discredited “Russian dossier” put together by a British agent hired by the DNC to collect “dirt” on Trump.  The dossier was alleged to contain information linking Trump to Putin and show that collusion between the two did indeed take place to show that Trump stole the election.  However, the dossier was nonetheless used by the FBI to show a need to investigate Trump.  As Goodwin (2017) of the New York Post, who suggested that Mueller’s main conflict of interest came from his ties to the FBI which should be (and now is) under investigation, notes:  “My great sin was to argue that Mueller’s close relationship with his successor at the FBI, James Comey, was always a problem and that recent developments created a situation that was fixable only by resignation.”  Thus, Mueller’s appointment was from the beginning a questionable move that has made many wonder why this investigation was greenlit under the former FBI boss, whose task was to investigate the acknowledged political foe of his former colleagues and peers, of whom he retained a high opinion.   Indeed, as Mueller was known to be a company man, the idea that he would be impartial in this investigation was far from certain.  Goodwin (2017) for example took issue with Mueller’s conflicts of interest:  “Those added conflicts include the revelation that Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic Party paid for the Russian dossier against Trump, with some of its paid sources linked to the Kremlin.  Because the FBI reportedly used the dossier to launch its probe of Trump and considered hiring its author, any probe faithful to Mueller’s assignment would include an examination of the FBI’s role in 2016.”  Moreover, the dossier was used by the Obama Administration as justification for unmasking Trump associates, even though the origins of the dossier were known to be dubious at best.  It was, in a way, a reflection of the justification given for the invasion of Iraq, which was based on shoddy and fabricated intelligence.

Trump had fired the previous Director of the FBI, James Comey (Mueller’s successor) and afterwards it became evident that Comey was leaking confidential material to the press in order to drum up suspicion in the public that Trump was out to hide something.  Comey himself has been under investigation as well by the Justice Department since his leaks became apparent (Turley, 2018).  Other leaks have also shown that there was some effort among top level FBI members to “resist” Trump, as later leaks also revealed.  For that reason, there has been some speculation that the investigation into Russian collusion is actually a politically motivated plot by Clinton-supporters within the FBI and Department of Justice to delegitimize the Trump Administration.  Trump himself has referred to the investigation as a witch hunt and has denied that any collusion took place.

There also appear to be conflicts of interest within the investigation which might suggest that the political motivation for the investigation is at least possible.   Latest Developments The House Intel report found that there was no evidence of collusion between the Trump Administration and Russans (Fredericks, 2018).  However, Democrats have been reluctant to accept this report as it was produced by a Republican led intelligence committee:  they believe the committee was biased and trying to clear the Trump Administration.

At the same time, numerous reports indicate that voters are simply tired of hearing the Russian collusion story as they don’t believe there is much truth to it anymore—especially as the only charges to emerge from Mueller’s counsel thus far have been aimed at a small group of obscure Russian hackers who were not shown to be connected in any way to the Trump Administration and who did not do significant damage to the electoral process.  The investigation veered off to focus on Paul Manafort, though the connection between Trump’s former (very briefly) campaign manager and collusion was not clear in the charges:  As the L.A.

Times reported, “Paul Manafort, President Trump's former campaign manager, has been indicted on 12 charges of money-laundering and conspiracy, the first charges  filed in the investigation of possible connections between the Trump campaign and a Russian effort to influence last year’s presidential election” (Tanfani, 2017).  Manafort’s charges relate to work he did with the Ukrainian president and a failure to pay taxes.   Since the investigation has failed to deliver more than this at this point in time, many are seeing it has been a bust:  obscure Russian hackers and charges against Manafort for laundering money and not paying taxes do not indicate much of anything regarding collusion.  Moreover, with the House Intel committee finding no evidence of collusion after subpoenaing FBI records, the focus is now shifting to the other side of the political spectrum, with DNC cronies now under investigation—including Comey and his colleagues and peers, whose leaked communications have shown a partisan preference for Hillary Clinton.  One FBI agent named Peter Strzok, who was having an affair with an FBI lawyer expressed the sentiment numerous times that Trump must be stopped.  Strzok was a colleague of Comey, Mueller’s successor.

Conclusion Comey meanwhile has written a book in which he claims Trump is a liar and unfit for office.  As Comey was fired by Trump it could be argued that Comey has an axe to grind; however, with his book tour in full swing, Comey’s leaking of classified documents (which he believed to be akin to.