{"id":537172,"date":"2026-03-21T18:15:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T18:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/537172\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T18:15:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T18:15:11","slug":"former-fbi-director-and-special-counsel-robert-mueller-has-died","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/537172\/","title":{"rendered":"Former FBI director and special counsel Robert Mueller has died"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robert Mueller, the former FBI director for more than a decade who later served as special counsel in the investigation into Russia\u2019s interference in the 2016 election, died on Friday, according to two people familiar with the matter. He was 81.<\/p>\n

The cause of death was not immediately known, but Mueller had been suffering from Parkinson\u2019s disease for years, the people said.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The Mueller probe became an obsessive subject for Trump, who repeatedly \u2014 as many as hundreds of times \u2014 called Mueller\u2019s investigation a \u201cwitch hunt,\u201d \u201ca scam\u201d and a \u201choax.\u201d<\/p>\n

Upon hearing of Mueller\u2019s death on Saturday, the president said, \u201cGood, I\u2019m glad he\u2019s dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRobert Mueller just died,\u201d Trump declared in a Truth Social post. \u201cGood, I\u2019m glad he\u2019s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people! President DONALD J. TRUMP\u201d<\/p>\n

Mueller\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

The investigation made Mueller a prime Trump target. For years, the president lobbed insults and sought to undermine Mueller\u2019s credibility while claiming a \u201cdeep state\u201d conspiracy against him.<\/p>\n

The grudge that Trump held against Mueller persisted into his second term. In March 2025, he signed an executive order <\/a>cutting ties between federal agencies and the law firm WilmerHale, Mueller\u2019s former employer. The order was subsequently struck down by a judge<\/a> as unconstitutional.<\/p>\n

\tRecommended<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tCarol Leonnig<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\tCarol Leonnig is a senior investigative reporter with MS NOW. \t\t<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tClarissa-Jan Lim<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\tClarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"MS<\/p>\n

\u00a9\u00a02026 Versant Media, LLC<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Robert Mueller, the former FBI director for more than a decade who later served as special counsel in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537173,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":["post-537172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}