Robert Mueller

Robert Swan Mueller III (born August 7, 1944) is an American attorney who served as the sixth Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 2001 to 2013. A conservative Republican, he was appointed by President George W. Bush; President Barack Obama gave his original ten-year term a two-year extension, making him the longest-serving FBI Director since J. Edgar Hoover. He is currently head of the Special Counsel investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections and related matters.

RSA Cyber Security Conference (2012)

 * I am convinced that there are only two types of companies: those that have been hacked and those that will be. And even they are converging into one category: companies that have been hacked and will be hacked again.

CNN Interview (2013)
August 2013 interview with CNN


 * After September 11th, you had core al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan with (Osama) bin Laden. Bin Laden was killed. You have al Qaeda growing in countries like Somalia, but most particularly in Yemen. And there's still substantial threat out of Yemen. And now you have the countries in the Arab Spring: Tunisia, Libya, Syria, Mali; Egypt most recently, where they're breeding grounds for radical extremists who may not stay there, but may present an attack. And, finally, you have, within the United States, the growth of homegrown, radicalized extremists who are radicalized on the Internet and then get their instructions for developing explosives on the Internet, as well.


 * I think there's a good chance we would have prevented at least a part of 9/11. In other words, there were four planes. There were almost 20 — 19 persons involved. I think we would have had a much better chance of identifying those individuals who were contemplating that attack.


 * I would query about what do you mean in terms of civil liberties. ... Do we exchange information in ways we did not before? Absolutely. You can say that that is a — to the extent that you exchange information between CIA, FBI, NSA and the like — you could characterize that as somehow giving up liberties. But the fact of the matter is, it's understandable and absolutely necessary if you want to protect the security of the United States.


 * When we had these African bombings of those embassies, we had an intelligence service in there that helped us. We had law enforcement agencies that helped us. We had access. In Libya, you have a government that does not control most of Libya, or a good portion of Libya. And consequently, the ambassador, the State Department, ourselves — were pushing to get in there at the earliest possible moment. And that ended up being a couple of weeks down the road. But that does not mean that we have not very thoroughly investigated that and are continuing to investigate it. And I do believe the persons responsible will be brought to justice.

Aaron Harber Interview (2015)
2015 interview with Aaron Harber
 * I think we're certainly vulnerable when it comes to the type of information that is out there. The type of information that is out there and available to those that want to find it and want to damage and harm to us. We're also to a certain extent vulnerable by the fact that we live by the rules passed by Congress. If I want to get an application before the court to intercept somebody's conversations, I have to show probable cause to believe that person is affiliated with a terrorist group. And if I don't get the probable cause, I can't do it. And we've had instances, Awlaki, a relatively famous individual exporter of the type of terrorism we've seen in the United States, was doing videos for a substantial period of time before the Fort Hood shooting, and it was only after that that we found out he was involved in the operations. Any other country, they may well have been up on his wire beforehand, because there's no responsibility of showing a court that there's probable cause to believe that this individual is involved in terrorist activities.
 * You really don't think about it as you go through it; you just try to do the right thing at the right time.
 * Being a FBI agent, being a police officer in Denver, Aurora, or any community is a tremendously rewarding job. To a certain extent, it goes up and down. It can be thankless as well. But you're really serving your community if you're serving as a police officer. I prosecuted homicide cases in Washington for almost three years, where I spent much, if not most of my time in the courtrooms along with homicide victims' families and the like, and it tears apart a community, and there's no more valuable function to the safety and security of the community than the police forces.
 * The problem with training is it's the last thing on the budget list. It's the first thing to get cut. And it should not be.
 * Cyberbullying, I know, it's being handled, generally, on the state side with state legislation. I look at it, frankly, as a father with children, with their ability to use Facebook and the like, knowing that anything you put on Facebook is going to be there and be there and be there. And who at that age understands the consequences of doing something when you're 16 that may come back to haunt you when you're 25 and you're seeking a job not in the private sector, necessarily, but in the public sector that you really want but some of the things that you've said or done or taken back then preclude you from exploring those options.

Robert Mueller Testimony before House Intelligence Committee (July 24, 2019)

 * [T]he Special Counsel regulations effectively gave me the role of . As a result, we structured our investigation around evidence for possible use in prosecution of federal crimes. We did not reach... conclusions. We did, however, set up processes... to identify and pass counterintelligence information... to the FBI. Members of our office periodically briefed the FBI about counterintelligence information. In addition, there were agents and analysts from the FBI who were not on our team, but whose job it was to identify counterintelligence information in our files, and to disseminate that information to the FBI. With these reasons, questions about what the FBI has done with the counterintelligence information obtained from our investigation should be directed to the FBI.
 * C-SPAN video, 19:05

'''The department has released a letter discussing the restrictions on my testimony. I therefore will not be able to answer questions about certain areas... of public interest. For example, I am unable to address questions about the opening of the FBI's Russia investigation, which occurred months before my appointment, or matters related to the... Steele dossier.''' These matters are the subject of ongoing review by the department. Any questions on these topics should therefore be directed to the FBI, or the Justice Department.
 * Second) the Justice Department has asserted privileges concerning investigative information and decisions, ongoing matters within the Justice Department, and deliberations within our office. These are Justice Department privileges that I will respect.
 * C-SPAN video, 21:00


 * Finally) ...over the course of my career I have seen a number of challenges to our democracy. The Russian government's efforts to interfere in our election is among the most serious...
 * C-SPAN video, 22:38

Quotes about Mueller

 * It's Mueller Time.
 * Anonymously-sourced but popular slogan that has circulated about Mueller since his appointment as Special Counsel for the United States Department of Justice. A play on the popular Miller Brewing Company slogan "It's Miller Time", originating in the 1970s.


 * Mueller Ain't Going Away
 * Anonymously-sourced popular slogan that has circulated since Mueller's appointment as Special Counsel for the United States Department of Justice; a parody of Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign slogan "Make America Great Again" as both are abbreviated to "MAGA".


 * Trump's cavalier attitude toward the Russian security threat has had a predictable yet devastating consequence. Moscow has not been deterred from attacking American interests. It has been emboldened. They continue to take advantage of the United States, around the world and on our own soil. Former director of National Intelligence Dan Coats testified in January 2019 that Russia was still sowing social, racial, and political discord in the United States through influence operations, and several months later, Robert Mueller said the same. "It wasn't a single attempt," he testified to Congress. "They're doing it as we sit here. And they expect to do it during the next campaign." This should be a national scandal, a cause for outrage and action against the Russian government. Instead, it's being ignored where it should matter most- in the Oval Office. Reporters asked Trump about Mueller's assessment days later and quizzed him again on whether he'd pressed Putin on the topic. "You don't really believe this," he shot back. "Do you believe this? Okay, fine. We didn't talk about it." Then he boarded Marine One.
 * Anonymous, A Warning (2019), p. 167