Former FBI director and special counsel Robert Mueller has died

Robert Mueller, the former FBI director for more than a decade who later served as special counsel in the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, died on Friday, according to two people familiar with the matter. He was 81.

The cause of death was not immediately known, but Mueller had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease for years, the people said.

Mueller, whose two-year probe concluded in 2019 that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election of Donald Trump, served as FBI director from 2001 to 2013. The Justice Department in 2017 appointed him special counsel to oversee the growing investigation after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey.

The Mueller probe became an obsessive subject for Trump, who repeatedly — as many as hundreds of times — called Mueller’s investigation a “witch hunt,” “a scam” and a “hoax.”

Upon hearing of Mueller’s death on Saturday, the president said, “Good, I’m glad he’s dead.”

“Robert Mueller just died,” Trump declared in a Truth Social post. “Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people! President DONALD J. TRUMP”

Mueller’s investigation resulted in 37 indictments and seven guilty pleas, though he found no evidence that Trump or his aides coordinated with Russia. The Mueller report, as it came to be known, did not conclude that Trump committed any crime, but it also did not clear the president of obstruction of justice.

The investigation made Mueller a prime Trump target. For years, the president lobbed insults and sought to undermine Mueller’s credibility while claiming a “deep state” conspiracy against him.

The grudge that Trump held against Mueller persisted into his second term. In March 2025, he signed an executive order cutting ties between federal agencies and the law firm WilmerHale, Mueller’s former employer. The order was subsequently struck down by a judge as unconstitutional.

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