It's wrong to speak ill of the dead, unless you're the Dark Lord.

First of all. I'm am NOT glad he's dead. In fact I'd prefer he be alive (with a thriving legal practice). But, I find the Dark Lord's candor refreshing. Honesty is the best policy.

Besides, that way he is assured to avoid the funeral.

Sorry. Bad Tommy. It's very wrong to find humor in this. I need to think before I write. Sort of.

Robert Mueller, Former FBI Chief Who Led Trump-Russia Probe, Dies at 81

Mueller became unlikely champion among liberal activists and bête noire of President Trump, who repeatedly attacked investigation as witch hunt

By Sadie Gurman, WSJ

Updated March 21, 2026

Robert Mueller—the taciturn former FBI director who transformed the nation’s premier law-enforcement agency into a terrorism-fighting force after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and who was summoned back into government service to lead a sprawling investigation into Russian election interference—has died, his family said in a statement. He was 81 years old.

Mueller, who routinely shunned the limelight throughout his law-enforcement career, largely vanished from public view after his departure from the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2013. But he was again thrust into a set of historic events in May 2017 when the Justice Department named him special counsel overseeing a probe into whether Donald Trump’s presidential campaign conspired with Moscow to interfere in the 2016 election.

The nearly two-year investigation of the president and his aides roiled Washington and cast a shadow over the presidency that Trump could never fully escape. Mueller’s leadership of the probe made him an unlikely champion—and at times a cultural icon—among liberal activists and a bête noire of Trump, who repeatedly attacked the investigation as a witch hunt.

“With deep sadness, we are sharing the news that Bob passed away last night. His family asks that their privacy be respected,” Mueller’s family said in a statement.

Trump on Saturday posted on social media about Mueller’s death. “I’m glad he’s dead,” Trump wrote. “He can no longer hurt innocent people!”

The work of Mueller’s team led to the convictions of a half dozen top Trump advisers, several of whom admitted to misleading investigators about their contacts with Russian officials or intermediaries, and the indictment of two dozen Russian citizens, including Russian intelligence officers. Trump later pardoned most of his advisers.

Mueller’s team found the campaign didn’t coordinate with Russia and drew no conclusion about whether Trump himself obstructed justice, which had become a significant part of the inquiry.

For Mueller, the investigation was a capstone of a long career in public service. He saw heavy combat as a Marine in Vietnam, took down complex criminal enterprises as a longtime prosecutor and had been the new head of the FBI for just a week when terrorists hijacked airliners and flew them into the World Trade Center towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington. (Another commandeered plane crashed in rural Pennsylvania as the passengers and crew tried to regain control.)

Mueller took over at the FBI believing he would focus on bank robberies, drug cases and violent crime, which had been the bread-and-butter of his work as a federal prosecutor. But the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks changed the bureau’s mission overnight, and Mueller spent the next 12 years transforming it from a domestic crime-fighting organization into a powerful, international counterintelligence agency.

Mueller took pains to show the rank-and-file that the bureau was the same organization they had signed up to serve. He drew notice, for example, for always wearing a white shirt and dark suit, later telling colleagues that he wanted something that would remain constant—what is called the FBI uniform—even as the agency evolved.

During his tenure as director, the second-longest after J. Edgar Hoover, officials thwarted terrorist plots to bring down a trans-Atlantic flight in 2001, a Detroit-bound jetliner in 2009 and U.S.-bound planes carrying printer-cartridge bombs in 2010.

Yet Mueller faced criticism for the bureau’s failure to stop the Fort Hood shooter, Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, in 2009, and the 2013 Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, both of whom were on the FBI’s radar before their crimes.

Still, as FBI director, Mueller, who was appointed by Republican President George W. Bush, earned credibility across the political spectrum. President Obama, a Democrat, sought a two-year extension of the FBI director’s traditional 10-year term so Mueller could remain in his post until 2013.

“Director Mueller led the Bureau during a period of significant change and played an important role in strengthening its ability to confront evolving national security threats while maintaining its core criminal investigative mission,” the FBI Agents Association said in a statement, calling him a lifelong public servant.

He was replaced by James Comey, whom Trump abruptly fired in 2017, which triggered the events leading to Mueller’s appointment as special counsel.

Mueller had stood next to Comey, who was then deputy attorney general, in 2004 during a battle over federal wiretapping policies. The two had gone to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft’s hospital bedside to stop Bush administration officials from seeking Ashcroft’s approval of a secret, no-warrant wiretapping program.

Born in New York City, Mueller grew up outside Philadelphia. He attended St. Paul’s School in Concord, N.H., and Princeton University. He joined the Marines and led a rifle platoon of the Third Marine Division in Vietnam, where he received a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. After leaving the military, he earned his law degree from the University of Virginia.

Before becoming FBI director, Mueller made a career as a federal criminal prosecutor in San Francisco, Boston and Washington, D.C. He led the homicide division of the U.S. attorney’s office in the District of Columbia, where he answered his phone: “Mueller. Homicide.” He was known for being detail-oriented, but also fully attentive to the big picture.

Mueller also led the Justice Department’s criminal division, where he supervised the prosecution of Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega and headed up investigations of the BCCI banking scandal and the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Mueller never uttered a public comment during the Russia investigation, appearing before Congress only reluctantly and under strict terms after his final report was issued. Testifying just weeks before his 75th birthday, Mueller occasionally stumbled over his words and at times seemed not to recall details of his own investigation, leading many observers to question whether he was in failing health.

But in many ways, the appearance reflected the same stoic Mueller who rarely spoke publicly, even when serving in government jobs that involved engaging with the press and explaining law-enforcement actions to the public. He spoke for about 45 seconds after being nominated as FBI director.

As special counsel, reporters and camera crews would mob Mueller to catch footage of him on his way into work. Supporters of his work fashioned T-shirts and buttons bearing his square-jawed face.

But after the probe wrapped up, sightings of the former director became increasingly rare.