The death of former special counsel Robert Mueller, left, who investigated suspected Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign, has been celebrated by President Donald Trump.
Hours after news of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s death broke on Saturday, President Donald Trump took to social media to celebrate.
Mueller, who died at 81 on Friday night after years battling Parkinson’s disease, headed the FBI for more than a decade. He was later tapped to investigate suspected Russian interference in Trump’s first presidential campaign.
When Mueller’s probe found “sweeping and systematic” tampering in the 2016 election, Trump added the lifelong Republican to his extensive list of enemies.
Article continues below this ad
“Good, I’m glad he’s dead,” Trump wrote on Truth Social after learning of Mueller’s death Saturday. “He can no longer hurt innocent people!”
Democrats were quick to condemn Trump’s words Saturday. California Sen. Adam Schiff reposted Trump’s comments on social media, adding, “Every day, this president shows his basic indecency and unfitness for office.”
Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer echoed that sentiment, warning that Trump’s “cruelty” was an intentional distraction from “rising gas prices, his aimless war, ICE abuses, and the Epstein files.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom shared on social media a photo of Mueller as a young man in military fatigues, accepting a commendation from his regimental commander in the Vietnam War. Mueller was also awarded a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for his three years of service in the Marines.
Article continues below this ad
“Trump despises anyone with a deep sense of duty, discipline, and patriotism,” Newsom wrote. “Rest in peace, Robert Mueller.”
After Mueller left the Marines, he earned a law degree from the University of Virginia and went west to San Francisco to begin his legal career. He was a litigation attorney in San Francisco, for Pillsbury, Madison and Sutro, from 1973 to 1976.
Mueller left the firm to take his first job as a federal prosecutor, staying in San Francisco. Later, he returned to San Francisco and served as U.S. attorney for California’s Northern District from 1998 to 2001 under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
Bush appointed Mueller as director of the FBI one week before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Mueller spent the first years of his tenure transforming the bureau into an anti-terror operation. On Saturday, former President Barack Obama called him “one of the finest directors in the history of the FBI.”
In May 2017, four years after he left the FBI, Mueller was appointed special counsel for the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The probe made Mueller a household name, ultimately resulting in charges against three companies and more than 30 people.
Article continues below this ad
Although Mueller cited Justice Department policy that prevented the indictment of a sitting president, several of Trump’s advisers were implicated in the report and ultimately faced charges. The president frequently decried that investigation as a “witch hunt.”
It’s not the first time Trump has cheered the demise of one of his perceived enemies in the past few months. When writer-director Rob Reiner was found dead in his Los Angeles home last December, the president suggested that the “anger” Reiner’s “Trump derangement syndrome” had caused others was to blame for his death.
