Mueller served in Vietnam from 1968 to 1969, was wounded in combat and earned a Bronze Star with a V for valor, a Purple Heart and two Navy Commendation Medals. He got his law degree from the University of Virginia, and after a few years at a white-shoe firm, joined the U.S. Attorney’s office in San Francisco. George W. Bush brought him back to Washington to be No. 2 at Justice, and he was sworn in as director of the FBI seven days before Sept. 11, 2001.
In that job for 12 years, Mueller reshaped the bureau to tackle the growing threat of transnational terrorists, a herculean undertaking for an agency that viewed intelligence and national security as secondary missions to beat-level criminal busts. He crossed swords with the younger Bush’s White House team, twice threatening to resign over matters of principle: once when Justice found a Bush eavesdropping program to be illegal, and again when Bush ordered him to give back to Congress evidence gathered on Democratic Representative William Jefferson, who was later convicted of bribery, racketeering and money laundering.
For all his professional credibility, however, Mueller’s efforts as special counsel have not gone unchallenged. In June, one of Trump’s lawyers publicly entertained the idea that the President might fire Mueller because some said the investigation was expanding beyond its original mandate, which in fact is to investigate any crime he may find. That month, Trump tweeted that the Mueller investigation was a “Witch Hunt” and accused some members of the team of bias. By the fall, the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal had called for Mueller to resign.
The pressure has hurt the President more than the prosecutor. Mueller is a lifelong registered Republican, and many in the GOP revere him for his years of service. Two Republican Senators, Thom Tillis and Lindsey Graham, proposed legislation protecting the special counsel from firing, while conservative commentators lambasted Trump for meddling. The heat over the probe may have permanently undermined Trump’s relations with his own Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, whose decision to recuse himself from the Russia matters—Sessions had been a member of the Trump campaign—opened the door for Rosenstein’s selection of Mueller.