Front Burner - Robert Mueller breaks his silence

Episode Date: May 30, 2019

After two years of silence, Robert Mueller delivered his first public statement since being appointed as Special Counsel. He announced his resignation from the United States Department of Justice and reiterated the central findings of his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, saying "If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so." Today on Front Burner, Mueller biographer Garrett Graff on the man at the helm of the Trump-Russia investigation.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. CPA 21, how do you read? I really want to know what happened. And it makes me extraordinarily angry that it's always been a big secret.

Uncover bomb on board. Investigating the biggest unsolved mass murder in Canada. CP Flight 21. Get the Uncover podcast for free on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts. Available now. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for being here. Robert Swan Mahler III hasn't said a peep in public in two years. And yes, that is his middle name.

But he hasn't said anything until yesterday. I hope and expect this to be the only time that I will speak to you in this manner. There has been discussion about an appearance before Congress. Any testimony from this office would not go beyond our report. We chose those words carefully, and the work speaks for itself. Yep, the man who led the Russia-Trump investigation. The man that so many people would love to hear from. He gave this brief statement.

He resigned. He took no questions. Today on FrontBurner, a deeper look at the silent cipher, Robert Mueller. Writer Garrett Graff is with me. He wrote a book about Mueller's time at the top of the FBI and has followed his career ever since. Hey, Garrett. Hi. So after two years, we finally got to hear Robert Mueller speak today.

I have to be honest with you, it was a little anticlimactic for me. He sort of recapped his report and then announced he was going to resign. From the Department of Justice to return to private life. Which is what everyone already saw coming. But did he sound like the Robert Mueller you've come to know? That's an interesting question because in some ways, yes, in some ways, no. That's an interesting question because in some ways yes, in some ways no. One, I was very struck by how somber he seemed today, almost even wary perhaps of the two years of being in the midst of this political circus.

But more than that, I was not that surprised by what he said. You know, he came out and he recapped his public conclusions and told people a bunch of different ways, a bunch of different times to go read the report. It is important that the office's written work speak for itself. Let me say a word about the report. And the report is my testimony. Then he went, I think, as far as we would expect Robert Mueller to go in saying, hey, Congress, there's a lot in here. The next step is yours. I'm not able to indict the president, but I went out and conducted this investigation and gathered the evidence so that you can consider whether this rises to the question of a crime. The department's written opinion says that the Constitution requires a process

other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing. And he was surprisingly blunt in that sense, at least for Bob Mueller. Now, the question is whether he was blunt enough to have those words actually carry weight and break through the noise. Do you think he was blunt enough? Probably not, is the short answer. He was as blunt as Robert Mueller could be, given the institutionalist that he is, given his level of respect for the system and the fact that he's a Justice Department company man, and that he's someone who is uncomfortable in the spotlight. I mean, I think to a certain extent, we should not overlook just how extraordinary it is that he's actually come out and said something at all.

And this was a case where the fact that he wanted to come out and say something today makes clear just how important he thinks the message is that he has to deliver, and that I think he feels likely that it's getting lost. And I will close by reiterating the central allegation of our indictments, that there were multiple systematic efforts to interfere in our election. And that allegation deserves the attention of every American. Thank you. Thank you for being here today. So to understand what he did today, I'm hoping that we can talk about who he is and go back a little bit. And can you give me a sense of where Robert Mueller comes from? One of the things that I was really struck by today is he was standing at that podium at the Justice Department under the seal of the U.S. Department of Justice. I want to thank the attorneys, the FBI agents, the analysts. And that may be the last time that he stands under that seal and speaks to the American public. And yet, it's a place where he has spent

the better part of 50 years of his career, having held almost every job in that department, except for the top one. You know, his career of public service is unparalleled. And it's worth even going sort of one step further back to look at how he has really spent his entire career, really, in public service. He joined the Marines right out of college. Right, and he went to Vietnam, right? At a time when you didn't have to volunteer to go to Vietnam. And he volunteered to go. He volunteered to go sort of the harshest path as a Marine infantry platoon commander. He graduated from Army Ranger School, the harshest survival school that the US military offers. Went to Vietnam, led a platoon, received a Bronze Star with valor for leading men in

combat and received the Purple Heart for being wounded himself. Came back to the United States and basically spent the rest of his life leading this very black and white fight for justice as a prosecutor. I do consider myself fortunate to have survived that tour in Vietnam. There were many who did not. And perhaps because of that, I've always felt compelled to try high watermarks in his career. So I understand at one point when he comes back and he works for the Justice Department, he's a lawyer now, and he goes after the mob. And so what happens there?

Well, the short answer is he's actually fought the mob in a couple of different locations. He was an assistant U.S. attorney in Massachusetts and later acting U.S. attorney there and then helped oversee some of those prosecutions as the head of the entire criminal division for the Justice Department. The crime boss, John Gotti, has been sentenced to life in prison with no parole. Outside the courthouse, Times Books sold transcripts of the FBI tapes that helped convict him. And then also went after organized crime when he was a prosecutor in San Francisco. And he has been a mob prosecutor at various times. He helped lead the prosecution of the Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. And actually, probably the most personal case that he's ever been involved in, the one that has carried the most historical resonance for him,

was helping to lead the investigation and prosecution of the bombers of Pan Am 103, helping to lead the investigation and prosecution of the bombers of Pan Am 103, the terrorist bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland. When Pan Am Flight 103 from Frankfurt to New York via London broke up and fell out of the sky yesterday evening, it was Britain's worst air disaster. None of the 259 people on board, most of them Americans, survived. Which is a case that he's been involved with on and off for the better part of 30 years. Can you tell me a little bit more about his involvement with that case? So he

stepped in as the head of the criminal division soon after the bombing and helped bring two Libyans to justice who had been accused of their roles in the bombing. And then actually at the start of the Bush administration, when he was acting deputy attorney general, he would get up early in the morning and go view with the family members of the victims, the video stream of the trial that was ongoing at the time. And then, you know, has kept in touch with them and, you know, can talk about individual pieces of evidence, you know, the pink t-shirt, the college sweatshirt. Right. Sort of these individual things that he saw in the evidence warehouse in Lockerbie that

have stuck with him. And you walk along and on these wooden shelves and you see a Syracuse sweatshirt, tennis sneakers that were worn by some kid. And that brings to life the fact that these are lives that are lost that should not have been lost. It feels like an incredible devotion. Is that a fair word? Incredible devotion.

And I've actually been talking about that case this spring because the letter that he sent Bill Barr after Barr's summary of the report that was a relatively, again, for Mueller, angry and pointed letter. Mueller wrote in the letter, quote, the summary letter the department sent to Congress and released to the public in late afternoon of March 24 did not fully the context, nature, and substance of this office's work and conclusions. There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. I can only think of one letter that Mueller has ever sent that is equivalent, and that was a letter that he sent when he was FBI director, that he sent to the Scottish Minister of Justice after Scotland released one of the Lockerbie bombers and let them go back to Libya under basically a medical dispensation. Our beliefs dictate that justice be served, but mercy be shown. And Muller wrote this incredibly emotional and angry letter to the Scottish minister of justice decrying that.

And really the Barr letter this spring is the only other time I've ever seen him be that angry in writing again. Right. Usually he's incredibly even keeled. Which is what we sort of saw today, which was this very. Down the center. Up to and including basically telling Congress I will – you're welcome to call me up to Capitol Hill. I'm just going to read to you from my report. And I'm not going to go one step further than that. And I chose those words very carefully.

I would not provide information beyond that which is already public in any appearance before Congress. I want to talk to you about his tenure as the FBI director. And so he becomes FBI director just before 9-11. And how does he respond to the largest terrorist attack ever on American soil? So it's actually even more poignant than that. Mueller on the morning of September 11th, 2001, had a briefing scheduled that was his first briefing on al-Qaeda and the bombing of the USS Cole. Literally, that was interrupted by word that the airplanes had hit the Twin Towers. Did you see what happened, sir?

Did you see what happened? What happened? Well, I was in the PATH train and there was a huge explosion sound. Everyone came out. A large section of the building is blown out around like the 80th floor. And it launched what was for Mueller this incredibly wrenching transformation of the FBI from a domestic law enforcement agency into an international intelligence agency. Just as we knew on September 11th that we had to find out who was responsible for this, we also knew our charge had changed forever. And so Mueller sort of oversaw this global expansion of the FBI as an agency

primarily first focused on counterterrorism and then later in the rise of cyber threats. And in many ways, it was the biggest transformation of the FBI since the FBI's creation in its modern day incarnation in the 1930s under J. Edgar Hoover. And Mueller became, by the time that he left, the longest serving FBI director since Hoover himself. And is he generally regarded as a very well-respected FBI director? Yes, particularly for being a nonpartisan, honest broker. He completed the full 10-year term that is standard for an FBI director. In his 10 years at the FBI, Bob has set the gold standard for leading the Bureau. He's improved the working relationship with local law enforcement across the country. And then actually was extended by a special act of Congress for an additional two years by a vote of 100 to zero in the U.S. Senate, which, you know, it would be hard to get the U.S. Senate to vote 100 to zero.

On anything. U.S. Senate to vote 100 to 0 on anything to conclude that today is Wednesday, you know, let alone actually anyone in any sort of, you know, controversial position. But Mueller is just as respected as one could possibly be in Washington. Senator Franken. I don't think it should come as a surprise that your department has been heavily criticized over the last 10 years for significant misuse of the department's surveillance powers and for other major civil liberties violations. I do not believe that we have abused our powers in any way with maybe one or two isolated examples. You know, we've talked about how he's been a Marine, a prosecutor, head of the FBI. I know that there are many more high watermarks we could hit in his career. But when he's called in to perform this incredibly

significant investigation, how do you think his past informs what he does on the Russia investigation? Yeah, it's a great question. And I have a really simple answer for it, which is, we all look at this and think that, you know, God, this has got to be the worst job that someone could have. This has got to have been so stressful. This must have been so hard. And I think if you caught Bob Mueller in a moment of candor, which does not come very often with him, he would say that this was actually no more than at least the third hardest job that he has ever had. more than at least the third hardest job that he has ever had. He's been very clear publicly that leading men in combat in Vietnam was the hardest, most stressful thing that he has ever done, and that nothing that he has ever done stateside will ever compare to that.

The lessons I learned as a Marine have stayed with me for more than 40 years. Value of teamwork, sacrifice, discipline, life lessons I could not have learned in quite the same way elsewhere. And that even as FBI director after 9-11, as he faced this maelstrom of terrorism threats, he still used to joke, look, I'm still getting more sleep every night than I ever did in Vietnam. Right. And I think that Mueller would look at this job as special counsel, as tough as it's been, as challenging as it has been constitutionally, legally, mentally, etc., etc. He's gotten to go

home every night to his own bed in Washington. And as we have sort of seen these incredible pictures leak out, you know, he's still going to the Apple store. He's still going to the same restaurant that he normally goes to for dinners on Friday nights. And, you know, for Mueller, this is the last thing in public life that he will probably ever do. And that has given him a really unique perspective

on a job that for most of the rest of us would be unimaginably stressful. Right. I suppose when you put it in perspective like that, the president tweeting at you that you're on a witch hunt is exactly what it is. It's just a tweet, especially when you've encountered some of the hardest things that anybody will have to witness in their lives. Absolutely. People have been critical of him for not coming to a conclusion in this report on obstruction. And I'm interested to hear your perspective on that.

So I think the people who say he didn't come to a conclusion just haven't read the report. Right. just haven't read the report. I think actually it's quite clear in his report that he does come to a conclusion. And he says it in sort of a negative relief way where he says, if I thought that the president had not committed a crime, I would say so. And he said that again in this press conference. And he said that again in the press conference. And he said that again in the press conference. That is going to be the quote that everyone plays again and again. If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.

We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime. Exactly. And, you know, if you are listening to a prosecutor say, if this guy was innocent, I would say so, and then there's no sentence that follows that says, I think this guy is innocent, Mueller has come to the conclusion that he can, given the legal parameters that he faced. And he was very clear in his press conference today laying those out. The special counsel's office is part of the Department of Justice. And by regulation, it was bound by that department policy. Charging the president with a crime was therefore not an option we could consider. He said, we have a system for dealing with presidential crimes.

That is not the criminal justice system. I hear what you're saying. Although a lot of people don't necessarily speak in this kind of legalese. And there is so much spin around this. Mueller has really struggled over these last couple of weeks is that Mueller is playing on a ball field with a certain set of rules where they're most of the rest of the people either aren't familiar with the rules or aren't playing by them at all. And that's the challenge that I think we're left with is, is Mueller's by the book style enough to break through? And I think that the answer to that, unfortunately, may end up being no. Do you think that, last question for today, do you think that this press conference today

will help that message get across? I think it already has. I think you've already seen reluctant movement from Capitol Hill today, statements from people up to and including Cory Booker saying that they now support impeachment. And remember, impeachment is the beginning of a process. It is not an immediate vote to remove someone from office. And when you look back, for instance, at Watergate with Nixon, that there's altered and broke through to people's lives and public opinion. I began by telling the president that there was a cancer growing on the presidency. And if the cancer was not removed, the president himself would be killed by it. that I think we shouldn't prejudge what the outcome of impeachment proceedings might end up being once we get these stories being told on television as Mueller started to do today. Garrett, thank you so much for this conversation today.

Thanks for having me. So remember when Garrett said we are already seeing the effects of Mueller's statement today on Capitol Hill? And how Democratic presidential hopeful Cory Booker is the latest to call for impeachment proceedings to begin? Well, Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi is still not having it. And it would be really hard to impeach Trump without her. Nothing is off the table. But we do want to make such a compelling case, such an ironclad case, that even the Republican Senate, which at the time seems to be not an objective jury, will be convinced of the path that we have to take as a country. That's all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner.

For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts. It's 2011 and the Arab Spring is raging. A lesbian activist in Syria starts a blog. She names it Gay Girl in Damascus. Am I crazy? Maybe. As her profile grows, so does the danger. The object of the email was, please read this while sitting down. It's like a genie came out of the bottle and you can't put it back. Gay Girl Gone. Available now.