The end of an investigation that rivets the nation usually calls for a news conference from the person in charge, but Robert Mueller chose a different approach. The special counsel sent a security officer to the Justice Department last Friday to deliver his long-awaited final report on the Russia case, and then joined his wife and another couple for dinner in a neighbourhood restaurant. With no photographers or TV cameras in sight, they sat in a secluded booth as cable news and social media exploded with speculation and accusations.
It was a fitting conclusion for the man whose tenure as the least talkative - yet most talked about — public figure in Washington is drawing to a close.
Mueller, 74, is expected to step down as special counsel in the coming days, and only a skeleton crew is left in the office. His report, which remains confidential for now, caps nearly two years of investigating Russian political interference, any conspiracy with Donald Trump’s campaign and whether the president obstructed justice.
During that time, Mueller was practically a ghost. Sometimes a snapshot would emerge of him — sitting down at an Apple store, or coincidentally waiting for a flight at the same airport gate as Donald Trump Jr. Otherwise he was at most a blurry figure, captured behind his car window as he pulled up to the special counsel’s office in the early mornings. His name often appeared at the bottom of indictments and court filings - 34 people were charged - but his subordinates did the talking during courtroom proceedings.
Mueller’s only public comment has been a single sentence, when he was appointed special counsel in May 2017.
“I accept this responsibility and will discharge it to the best of my ability,” Mueller said.
He issued no statement last Friday when he submitted his report.
Mueller’s history of public service, reticence and rectitude provided a sharp contrast to Trump’s life of tabloid shenanigans, bombast and garish wealth.
A Princeton University graduate, Mueller volunteered for the Marines and served as an infantry officer in the Vietnam War, receiving a Bronze Star for valour and a Purple Heart after being shot in the leg. He became a federal prosecutor after the war and rose through the ranks at the Justice Department. Eventually he served for a dozen years as FBI director under presidents of both parties, George W Bush and Barack Obama, after Obama and Congress agreed to a law to extend Mueller’s term beyond the 10-year limit.
Mueller was working in private practice when Trump fired his successor as FBI director, James Comey, on May 9, 2017. To preserve the independence of the Russia investigation, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Mueller special counsel.
Since then, Mueller’s silence has been the counterweight to Trump’s blizzard of Twitter screeds, and the special counsel’s office earned a reputation as the rare leakproof operation in Washington.
Mueller’s reserve was also a marked shift from two of the highest profile special prosecutors of the past generation — Lawrence Walsh, who spent seven years examining a scandal of the Reagan administration, and Kenneth Starr, whose investigation of Bill Clinton and his White House lasted four years.
Starr talked publicly about his work, at one point holding a widely televised news conference at the end of his suburban Washington driveway.
Clinton allies accused Starr’s prosecutors, who included Brett Kavanaugh, now a Supreme Court justice, of routinely leaking secret grand jury testimony in an effort to force the president to resign. The investigation led the House to impeach Clinton, who was then acquitted by the Senate.
Starr consistently denied any improper actions. But in 1998, as the Clinton impeachment proceedings were taking place, US District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson ruled that members of his staff had engaged in “serious and repetitive” violations of grand jury secrecy rules. Johnson threatened contempt proceedings against Starr staffers in one case, but an appeals court overturned that portion of her order, ruling that she had applied too strict a standard and that the way Starr’s staff dealt with the press was “troubling” but not illegal. — DPA
Chris Megerian and David Lauter
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