Robert Mueller, the former FBI chief who documented Russia’s interference in the 2016 US election and its contacts with Donald Trump’s campaign, has died aged 81.
His death was reported by MS NOW and a New York Times journalist who posted a statement attributed to his family.
No cause of death was given for Mr Mueller, a decorated Vietnam War veteran who led the FBI in the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US.
The New York Times last year reported that Mr Mueller had Parkinson’s disease.
Mueller retired after 12 years as Federal Bureau of Investigation director in 2013 but was summoned back to public service by a senior Justice Department official four years later as a special counsel to take over an inquiry into Russia’s election meddling after Mr Trump fired then-FBI chief James Comey.
Mr Mueller conducted a 22-month investigation that produced indictments against 34 people, including several of Mr Trump’s associates as well as Russian intelligence officers and three Russian companies, and a series of guilty pleas and convictions.
Mr Mueller ultimately stopped short of a criminal indictment of the Republican president.
The US president celebrated Mr Mueller’s passing.
“Good, I’m glad he’s dead,” he wrote on his Truth Social account.
Adding: “He can no longer hurt innocent people!”
Mr Mueller’s Russia inquiry, detailed in a 448-page 2019 report, laid bare what he and US intelligence agencies described as a Russian campaign of hacking and propaganda to sow discord in the US, to denigrate 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and boost Mr Trump, the Kremlin’s preferred candidate.
Russia has denied any election interference.