The White House had been considering Robert Mueller as a top candidate to lead the FBI before the deputy U.S. attorney general Rod J. Rosenstein changed course and asked Mueller to serve as special counsel investigating Russian meddling in last year’s election, NPR writes.
Mueller had gone so far as to meet with Justice Department leaders and White House officials about the FBI job, which opened after President Donald Trump fired Director James Comey on May 9. But that idea didn’t happen, after Rosenstein instead reached out to Mueller to run the politically sensitive Russia probe, which is examining ties between Russians and Trump campaign aides, sources told NPR.
Mueller served in top roles at the Justice Department and became President George W. Bush’s FBI director only days before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks devastated the country.
President Barack Obama asked Mueller to continue to serve for two more years past the director’s normal 10-year term, a move that required Congress to pass special legislation.
Congress cited “the critical need for continuity and stability at the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the face of ongoing threats to the United States and leadership transitions at the Federal agencies charged with protecting national security.”
That law stated that lawmakers had made a one-time exception and made it clear that Mueller “may not serve as Director after September 4, 2013.”
The idea that the Trump administration had considered bringing Mueller back to the FBI underscores the difficulty it had in finding a replacement for the fired Comey — as well as Mueller’s sterling reputation among both Democrats and Republicans in Washington, NPR comments.
Mueller is currently filling his special counsel office with an all-star team. Beyond his law partners Aaron Zebley and James Quarles, who once worked on the Watergate team, Mueller has hired the head of the Justice Department’s fraud section, Andrew Weissmann, a sign that the money trail will be critical in getting to the bottom of the Russia affair. He also brought on Jeannie Rhee, a former prosecutor and lawyer in the Obama Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, whose biography describes her background in “criminal law, criminal procedure, executive privilege, civil rights and national security.”
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