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by Anabel Keeling Sr. 6 min read

Who is Robert Mueller and what is the Mueller investigation?

P resident Donald Trump plans to nominate former attorney general William Barr, who has criticized special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, to head the Justice Department.

When was Mueller appointed as Special Counsel?

Jan 29, 2019 · Saul Loeb / AFP/Getty Images Updated at 8:45 p.m. ET Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation is “close to being completed,” Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said on Monday. Whitaker said he has been fully briefed about Mueller’s work and that he is looking forward to reviewing a final report.

What did Robert Mueller do in the election?

Nov 08, 2018 · The department's No. 2, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, took over and appointed Mueller after Trump fired then-FBI Director James Comey in May 2017. Kathleen Clark, a professor of legal ethics at Washington University in St. Louis, said Whitaker's previous comments about the Mueller probe raise questions about his impartiality and warrant his recusal.

Did Trump interview Mueller for FBI job day before named Special Counsel?

Sep 20, 2017 · Weissmann was the FBI's general counsel while Mueller was FBI director. In early 2015, he was selected to serve as chief of the fraud section in the Justice Department's criminal division. He has...

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1 day ago · The U.S. Department of Defense and private individuals pumping the Alfa Bank hoax also assisted former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Donald Trump for supposed collusion ...

Who is Aaron Zebley?

Aaron Zebley. Joining the prosecution team in June, Zebley had served as Mueller's chief of staff while he was FBI director. Before joining the special counsel's office, he was a partner at law firm WilmerHale, where he focused on cybersecurity issues. He also been senior counselor in the Justice Department's national security division, ...

Is Mueller using a grand jury?

Last month, CBS reported Mueller is using a grand jury in the probe, which is an indication the probe is intensifying. The impaneling of a grand jury means Mueller's team has the ability to seek indictments and subpoena records, although the special counsel already had broad investigative authority when Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein ...

Who is Andrew Weissmann?

Andrew Weissmann. Weissmann was the FBI's general counsel while Mueller was FBI director. In early 2015, he was selected to serve as chief of the fraud section in the Justice Department's criminal division. He has also worked as a partner at Jenner & Block and was the director of the Enron Task Force from 2002 until 2005.

What is the scope of the investigation?

The scope of the investigation, individuals familiar with the matter have told CBS News, includes Russian interference in the election, Russian hacking, any other Russian influence, and possible financial wrongdoing.

Who was James Quarles?

James Quarles. Quarles served as an assistant special prosecutor as part of the Watergate Special Prosecution from 1973 until 1975. More recently, he also was a partner at WilmerHale. He also served as a law clerk in a U.S. District Court of Maryland in the early 1970s, according to Bloomberg.

Who is Michael Dreeben?

Michael Dreeben. Dreeben currently serves as the deputy solicitor general in charge of overseeing the Justice Department's criminal appellate docket. According to the American Law Institute, Dreeben, who has argued more than 100 court cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, joins the team on a "part-time basis.".

Who is Greg Andres?

Greg Andres. A former DOJ official, Andres is one of the most recent hires to the team joining in early August, according to Reuters news agency. Andres comes to the team from the Davis Polk & Wardwell law firm in New York where he is a partner, focusing on white collar criminal defense cases.

United States Marine Corps Service

  • Mueller has cited the combat death of his Princeton lacrosse teammate David Spencer Hackett in the Vietnam War as an influence on his decision to pursue military service. Of his classmate, Mueller has said, "One of the reasons I went into the Marine Corps was because we lost a very g…
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Career

  • Private practice and Department of Justice
    After receiving his Juris Doctor in 1973 from the University of Virginia School of Law, Mueller worked as a litigator at the firm Pillsbury, Madison and Sutro in San Francisco until 1976. He then served for 12 years in United States Attorney offices. He first worked in the office of the U.S. Att…
  • Federal Bureau of Investigation
    President George W. Bush nominated Mueller for the position of FBI director on July 5, 2001. He and two other candidates, Washington lawyer George J. Terwilliger III and veteran Chicago prosecutor and white-collar crime defense lawyer Dan Webb, were up for the job, but Mueller, de…
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Personal Life

  • Mueller met his future wife, Ann Cabell Standish, at a high school party when they were 17. Standish attended Miss Porter's School in Farmington, Connecticut, and Sarah Lawrence College, before working as a special-education teacher for children with learning disabilities. In September 1966, they married at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Sewickley, Pennsylvania. They have two …
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Further Reading

  1. Mayer, Jane (2009). The Dark Side. New York: Anchor Books. ISBN 978-0307456298.
  2. Graff, Garrett (2011), The Threat Matrix: Inside Robert Mueller's FBI and the War on Global Terror, Little, Brown and Company, ISBN 978-0316068611
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External Links

  1. Profile at the Federal Bureau of Investigation and staff
  2. Appearances on C-SPAN
  3. Robert Mueller on Charlie Rose
  4. Robert Mueller at IMDb
See more on en.wikipedia.org

Overview

The Special Counsel investigation was an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, links between associates of Donald Trump and Russian officials, and possible obstruction of justice by Trump and his associates. The investigation was conducted by special prosecutor Robert Muellerfrom May 2017 to March 2019. It was also called the Russia investigati…

Origin and powers

When the special counsel was appointed by Rod Rosenstein in May 2017, the special counsel took over an existing counterintelligence investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) into what proved to be Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections and numerous secretive links between Trump associates and Russian officials. According to reports, Australian officials info…

Original claims of Russian election involvement

The first public US government assertion of Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election came in a joint statement on September 22, 2016, by Senator Dianne Feinstein and House member Adam Schiff, the top Democrats on the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, respectively. The US Intelligence Community released a similar statement fifteen days later.
In January 2017, an assessment was released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, …

Grand juries

On August 3, 2017, Mueller empaneled a grand jury in Washington, D.C., as part of his investigation. The grand jury has the power to subpoena documents, require witnesses to testify under oath, and issue indictments for targets of criminal charges if probable cause is found.
The Washingtonian grand jury is separate from an earlier Virginian grand jury investigating Michael Flynn; the Flynn case has been absorbed into Mueller's overall investigation.

Legal teams

The investigation involved multiple legal teams: the attorneys that took part in the investigation (supervised by Special Counsel Robert Mueller); the team that defended President Trump in his personal capacity; and the team that represented the White House as an institution separate from the President.
According to CNN, as of August 2018, the prosecution team included 15 attorn…

Changes to oversight leadership

As the Mueller investigation progressed, Trump repeatedly expressed anger over Attorney General Sessions' decision to recuse. In July 2017, Trump said that Sessions should have informed him about Sessions' impending recusal before Trump even nominated him, then Trump would have nominated someone else for attorney general. In May 2018, Trump said that he wished th…

Topics

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein authorized Robert Mueller to investigate and prosecute "any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump", as well as "any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation" and any other matters within the scope of 28 CFR 600.4 – Jurisdiction.
The investigation's broad scope allowed Mueller to investigate many topics, including: Russian e…

Cost–benefit analysis

A cost–benefit analysis of the investigation shows a net benefit for the government, with far more income than expenses.
By December 2018, the investigation had cost approximately $32 million but gained approximately $48 million. More than half of the cost of the investigation was for personnel compensation and benefits. The gains were accrued primarily by uncovering unpaid taxes by tar…