Robert Mueller, the no-nonsense former FBI chief who documented Russia’s interference within the 2016 U.S. election and its contacts with Donald Trump’s marketing campaign however opted to not deliver legal prices in opposition to a sitting President, has died at age 81, a number of information retailers reported on Saturday (March 21, 2026).
His dying was reported by MS NOW and a New York Occasions journalist who posted a press release attributed to the Mueller household. No explanation for dying was given for Mueller, a adorned Vietnam Struggle veteran who led the FBI within the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 assaults on the U.S.
The New York Occasions final yr reported that Mueller had Parkinson’s illness.
Mueller retired after 12 years as Federal Bureau of Investigation director in 2013 however was summoned again to public service by a senior Justice Division official 4 years later as a particular counsel to take over an inquiry into Russia’s election meddling after Mr. Trump fired then-FBI chief James Comey.
Mueller carried out a 22-month investigation that produced indictments in opposition to 34 individuals, together with a number of Mr. Trump associates in addition to Russian intelligence officers and three Russian firms, and a sequence of responsible pleas and convictions. Mueller finally stopped in need of a legal indictment of the Republican president, bitterly disappointing many Democrats.
Mr. Trump on Saturday celebrated Mueller’s passing. “Good, I am glad he is lifeless,” Mr. Trump wrote on the Reality Social website. “He can not damage harmless individuals!”
Throughout his profession as a prosecutor and FBI chief, Mueller displayed a patrician method and typically wood persona— simply in regards to the reverse of the bombastic Mr. Trump. He was recognized by some as “Bobby Three Sticks” due to his full identify— Robert Mueller III— a moniker that belied his formal bearing and sober method to regulation enforcement.
His Russia inquiry, detailed in a 448-page 2019 report, laid naked what Mueller and U.S. intelligence businesses have described as a Russian marketing campaign of hacking and propaganda to sow discord within the U.S., denigrate 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and enhance Mr. Trump, the Kremlin’s most popular candidate. Russia denied election interference.
“First, our investigation discovered that the Russian authorities interfered in our election in sweeping and systematic trend,” Mueller mentioned throughout 2019 congressional testimony.
“Second, the investigation didn’t set up that members of the Mr. Trump marketing campaign conspired with the Russian authorities in its election interference actions. We didn’t tackle ‘collusion,’ which isn’t a authorized time period. Quite, we centered on whether or not the proof was adequate to cost any member of the marketing campaign with collaborating in a legal conspiracy. It was not,” Mueller added.
In analyzing whether or not Mr. Trump had dedicated the crime of obstruction of justice, Mueller checked out a sequence of actions. These included Mr. Trump’s makes an attempt to have the particular counsel fired and to restrict the scope of the investigation in addition to the President’s efforts to forestall the general public from figuring out a few 2016 assembly at Trump Tower in New York between senior Trump marketing campaign officers and Russians. Mueller pointedly didn’t exonerate the President, as Mr. Trump claimed.
“Based mostly on Justice Division coverage and ideas of equity, we determined we might not make a dedication as as to whether the president dedicated against the law,” Mueller instructed lawmakers.
“The President was not exculpated for the acts that he allegedly dedicated,” Mueller added.
Quite a few hyperlinks
Mueller was named by the Justice Division’s No. 2 official, Rod Rosenstein, to take over the Russia investigation.
The investigation, in response to the report, unearthed “quite a few hyperlinks” between the Russian authorities and Mr. Trump’s marketing campaign and mentioned the President’s staff “anticipated it might profit electorally from data stolen and launched by way of Russian efforts,” referring to hacked Democratic emails.
Mueller, a longtime Republican, confronted unremitting assaults by Mr. Trump and his allies on his integrity as they tried to discredit the investigation and the particular counsel himself. Mr. Trump used social media, speeches and feedback to information media to assail Mueller, accusing him of working a politically motivated, “rigged witch hunt,” going “rogue,” surrounding himself with “thugs” and having conflicts of curiosity.
“It is all an enormous hoax,” Mr. Trump mentioned in 2019.
“Completely, it was not a hoax,” Mueller instructed the congressional listening to, noting the quite a few prices arising from the probe.
Mr. Trump’s former marketing campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was convicted in 2018 on eight prices of monetary wrongdoing and pleaded responsible to 2 others, receiving a 7-1/2-year jail sentence. Longtime Mr. Trump adviser Roger Stone was convicted in 2019 of seven counts of mendacity to Congress, obstruction and witness tampering and sentenced to greater than three years in jail. Trump later used .his govt clemency energy to pardon them. Mr. Trump’s former nationwide safety adviser, Michael Flynn, entered a responsible plea to mendacity to the FBI. Mr. Trump additionally pardoned Mr. Flynn.
The Democratic-led Home of Representatives on the time twice impeached Mr. Trump after Mueller had completed his work, although these actions didn’t develop out of the particular counsel’s findings.
An company in disaster
Appointed by Republican President George W. Bush to move the FBI, Mueller took over as its director one week earlier than the September 11 assaults on the U.S. by al Qaeda militants utilizing hijacked planes that killed about 3,000 individuals. Democratic President Barack Obama later prolonged Mueller’s appointment. By the point Mueller left the place, his tenure was exceeded solely by J. Edgar Hoover’s 48-year stint.
Mueller was credited with reworking the premier U.S. regulation enforcement company after Congress and an impartial authorities fee decided that the FBI and CIA had didn’t share data earlier than the September 11 assaults that would have helped stop them. Mueller revamped the FBI into an company centered on defending nationwide safety along with regulation enforcement, placing extra assets into counterterrorism investigations and bettering cooperation with different U.S. businesses.
He put his profession on the road in 2004 when he and Comey, then the Deputy Lawyer Common, threatened to resign when Bush White Home officers sought to reauthorize a home eavesdropping program that the Justice Division had deemed unconstitutional. The 2 rushed to a Washington hospital and prevented prime Bush aides from persuading an ailing Lawyer Common John Ashcroft, recovering from gallbladder surgical procedure, to reauthorize the surveillance program.
Comey succeeded Mueller as FBI director in 2013, solely to be fired by Mr. Trump.
Born into an prosperous New York household, Mueller grew up outdoors of Philadelphia, graduated from Princeton College, earned a grasp’s diploma at New York College and joined the U.S. Marine Corps, serving as an officer for 3 years, studying a rifle platoon in Vietnam and receiving honors together with the Bronze Star and Purple Coronary heart.
Mueller then earned a regulation diploma from the College of Virginia and later turned a federal prosecutor and headed the Justice Division’s legal division, supervising circumstances together with prosecution of the crime boss John J. Gotti and the probe into the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland, earlier than Bush selected him to guide the FBI.
“He actually hates the unhealthy guys,” former Massachusetts Governor William Weld, who preceded Mueller because the U.S. lawyer in Boston, instructed the New York Occasions in 2013.
Mueller and his spouse, Ann, had two daughters.