Trust Issues

In Mueller We Trust

How Robert Mueller’s experience uniquely prepared him for this polarizing moment in history

Garrett Graff
GEN
Published in
9 min readJun 19, 2018

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Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

Robert Mueller is Donald Trump’s best hope — and his worst nightmare.

When Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel, in May 2017, I said at the time that Donald Trump and the GOP should welcome such a dogged, driven investigator. If there was, as Trump repeatedly insists,absolutely no Russia collusion, and all the confusing allegations of secret meetings with Russians, shady business deals, and the attack on the 2016 elections were nothing more than a bizarre series of totally innocent coincidences, Robert Mueller was probably the only person in America who could convince Democratic lawmakers, cable pundits, and the Washington press corps that Trump and his campaign aides were guilt-free.

Mueller, on the day of his appointment, after all, might have been the most respected, nonpartisan government official in Washington. He served in top posts for all five preceding presidents, from Reagan to Obama, and was the longest-serving FBI director since J. Edgar Hoover himself. A combat-decorated Marine in Vietnam, he rose to the top of the Justice Department — overseeing its entire criminal division under George H.W. Bush — then, two years after leaving office…

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Garrett Graff
GEN
Writer for

Journalist and Historian. Director, Aspen Institute Cyber Program, Contributor to WIRED, CNN, and Longreads. Author, "The Threat Matrix" and "Raven Rock."