On March 22, 2019, Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III delivered a 448-page report of his findings about Russian subversion of the 2016 Presidential election to Attorney General William Barr.

Two days later, Barr sent a four-page letter to Republican and Democratic members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives.

Purporting to summarize the major findings of the Mueller report, Barr wrote:

• “The Special Counsel did not find that the Trump [Presidential] campaign, or anyone associated with it, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government….”
• “Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and I have concluded that the evidence developed during the Special Counsel’s investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.”

But on May 29, Mueller gave a totally different reason for why Trump hadn’t been indicted for obstruction-of-justice: “Under long-standing department policy, a President cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. That is unconstitutional.”  

On July 17, Mueller finally will explain before Congress how he reached the conclusions outlined in his report.

At the center of this controversy is a 74-year-old man who assumed the burdens created when millions of racist, hate-filled Americans deliberately sent a Russian-backed egomaniac and would-be dictator to the White House.

That man is Robert Swan Mueller III.

Like Will Kane, the embattled marshal played by Gary Cooper in High Noon, he is not a young man—born on August 7, 1944. And, like Cooper’s Will Kane, he is tall, gray-haired and tight-lipped.

But while Cooper never saw military service, Mueller did. A 1966 graduate of Princeton University, he served as a Marine Corps infantry platoon commander during the Vietnam War.

Wounded in combat, among the military awards he received were:

• The Bronze Star Medal with Combat “V” for heroism (for saving a wounded Marine while under enemy fire).
• The Purple Heart Medal (awarded for wounds in combat).
• Two Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medals with Combat “V”.
• Combat Action Ribbon.
• National Defense Service Medal.

Having given three years of his life (1968-1971) to the Marines, Mueller devoted the rest of his life to law enforcement.

Robert Mueller

A 1973 graduate of the University of Virginia Law School, Mueller served as:

• United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts (1986-1987);
• United States Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division (1990-1993);
• United States Attorney for the Northern District of California (1998-2001);
• United States Deputy Attorney General (January 20, 2001– May 10, 2001).

On September 4, 2001—seven days before Al Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks on Washington and New York—President George W. Bush appointed him director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Widely praised for his integrity and effectiveness, he served his full 10-year term—the legal maximum. 

But when President Barack Obama took office in 2009, he asked Mueller—a lifelong Republican—to stay on for an additional two years until a suitable replacement could be found.

Mueller agreed—and was succeeded by a fellow Justice Department colleague named James Comey.

Retiring from the FBI in 2013 at age 69, Mueller’s 27-year career as a dedicated law enforcer seemed at last to be over. 

Then, on May 9, 2017, President Donald Trump fired Comey as FBI director. There were five reasons for this:

• Comey had refused to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump. Trump had made the “request” during a private dinner at the White House in January.
• Comey told Trump that he would always be honest with him. But that didn’t satisfy Trump’s demand that the head of the FBI act as his personal secret police chief—as was the case in the former Soviet Union.
• Trump had tried to coerce Comey into dropping the FBI’s investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, for his secret ties to Russia and Turkey. Comey had similarly resisted that demand. 
• Comey had recently asked the Justice Department to fund an expanded FBI investigation into well-documented contacts between Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign and Russian Intelligence agents.
• The goal of that collaboration: To elect Trump over Hillary Clinton, a longtime foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

James Comey

On May 10—the day after firing Comey—Trump met in the Oval Office with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. 

Kislyak is reportedly a top recruiter for Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence agency. He has been closely linked with Jeff Sessions, now Attorney General, and fired National Security Adviser Mike Flynn. 

“I just fired the head of the FBI,” Trump told the two dignitaries. “He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.” 

On May 11, Trump, interviewed on NBC News by reporter Lester Holt, said: “And in fact when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said ‘you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won.'”   

A national firestorm erupted—unprecedented since President Richard M. Nixon had fired Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox on October 20, 1973.

To squelch it, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein moved quickly.

On May 17, 2017, he appointed Robert S. Mueller III to serve as Special Counsel for the United States Department of Justice.