FBI Director Robert Mueller (R) shakes hands with New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (L) at the World Trade Disaster site in New York 21 September 2001. MIKE SEGAR/AFP/Getty ImagesFormer special counsel Robert Mueller has decades of experience testifying before Congress, but the last time he did it was more than six years ago during his final weeks serving as FBI director.
Here’s a look at Mueller’s career:
Years of legal work: Mueller began his Department of Justice career in 1976 as an assistant US attorney in San Francisco, and during the decades that followed took only two breaks to try out the private sector, each lasting no more than a couple of years. The stints were so short-lived because of a simple fact: Mueller couldn’t stand defending those he felt were guilty, Mueller biographer Garrett Graff, author of “The Threat Matrix.”
He had high-profile DOJ cases: Mueller oversaw some of the highest-profile cases of the last few decades including the prosecution of mobster John Gotti and Panamanian Dictator Manuel Noriega. But it was his investigation into the 1988 terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland that would most profoundly affect him.
Mueller was a tough boss: In the office, Mueller was known as a taskmaster who worked long hours and demanded detailed briefings from his staff. At Mueller’s annual holiday party at his home, Mudd, a CNN counterterrorism analyst and the FBI’s former senior intelligence adviser who met daily with Mueller, recalled that Mueller would flick the lights on and off shortly after the end time noted on the invitation — a not-so-subtle sign that it was time for his guests to leave.
He’s known for being “apolitical”: One topic never discussed, though, was politics. Serving with Mueller for more than four years, and attending thousands of meetings with him, Mudd said he never once heard him say anything political. It was one of the reasons President George W. Bush nominated him to be FBI director in 2001, noting during his introduction of Mueller that the FBI “must remain free of politics and uncompromising in its mission.”
Watch more about Mueller’s career: