(LifeSiteNews) — Robert Mueller, the former FBI director who spearheaded the fateful “Russian collusion” investigation in President Donald Trump’s first term, died over the weekend at age 81, prompting a jubilant reaction from Trump that has largely overshadowed the news.
“With deep sadness, we are sharing the news that Bob passed away,” his family announced Saturday in a statement to the Associated Press. “His family asks that their privacy be respected.” A specific cause of death was not shared, but he was revealed to be suffering from Parkinson’s disease last August.
A Marine who served with distinction in the Vietnam War, Mueller later became an attorney who entered public office serving in the U.S. Justice Department starting in 1990. Former President George W. Bush tapped him to helm the Federal Bureau of Investigation just one week before the September 11, 2001, terror attacks. He resigned the post in 2013, under former President Barack Obama.
In 2017, Mueller was chosen as special counsel to lead the Justice Department’s investigation into potential attempts by the Russian government to influence the 2016 presidential election, which was looked on by many with suspicion that the real goal was to malign Trump as having colluded with the Kremlin.
Mueller’s final March 2019 report ultimately exonerated Trump, admitting that it “did not identify evidence that any U.S. persons conspired or coordinated with” the Kremlin’s efforts to “provoke and amplify political and social discord in the United States,” including anyone involved in the Trump campaign. However, there were numerous examples of Mueller mismanaging the investigation and displaying anti-Trump bias in the run-up to that conclusion.
In subsequent interviews, he was unable to explain the lack of vetting of his investigators for left-wing biases, including ties to Trump’s 2016 opponent Hillary Clinton; he refused to explain leaks of his team’s activities to the press; he dismissed Democrat contacts with Russia as “outside my purview”; and, perhaps most damningly, he refused to reveal when he concluded there had been no collusion, leading commentators to question whether he chose to keep the probe going for at least an additional year longer than necessary.
Journalist Byron York observed the following July that, when questioned about the investigation by the House Judiciary Committee, Mueller “was slow to react to questions. He frequently asked for questions to be repeated. He sometimes appeared confused. He did not appear to be conversant with some issues in the investigation. He did not, or could not, put together detailed answers even to those questions he agreed to address.”
This history clearly still on his mind, the president was quick to make his feelings known. “Robert Mueller just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead,” Trump reacted on his personal social network Truth Social. “He can no longer hurt innocent people! President DONALD J. TRUMP”
The political world’s responses largely fell along established partisan factions, with longtime Trump critics expressing shock and disgust. The more liberal opponents attempted to cast Mueller as a patriot undeserving of such scorn, while others argued it was unnecessary and indecent to celebrate a man’s death, regardless of the man’s positive or negative qualities.
“This is the kind of stuff Trump does that makes people not just oppose him but hate him,” Fox News political analyst Brit Hume responded. “There was no need to say anything.”
The president’s defenders argued that Trump’s anger at Mueller was understandable, given the scope of the left-wing “persecution” he and his family endured, and that the public should be reminded of the weaponization of government Mueller presided over.
“I think that given what has been done to President Trump and his family it is impossible for either of us to understand what he has been through,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press. “I was with the president in the green room at Davos and there was a video playing of what may have been an illegal raid on his home at Mar-a-Lago. They are going through his wife’s wardrobe. And I watched the look in his eye, and I think that neither one of us can understand what has been done to the president and to his family.” (Mueller had not been involved in that raid.)
Trump’s job approval currently averages at 41.6 percent, according to RealClearPolitics, as Republicans face a tough battle to retain control of Congress this fall. Elected Republicans have been largely silent about Trump’s remarks.
