# Robert Mueller

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "Robert Mueller," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/robert-mueller/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*Director of the FBI in the years after September 11, 2001; per John Kiriakou, the official who, upon learning on July 31, 2002 that the CIA had won presidential approval to take primacy over Abu Zubaydah's interrogation away from the FBI's Ali Soufan, withdrew not just FBI personnel from the black site but every FBI employee from the country itself within 48 hours — "we know what these CIA guys are going to do; they're going to go completely nuts; we don't want any part of it."*

- **Position:** Director of the FBI, 2001–2013
- **July 31 2002 decision (per Kiriakou):** Withdrew all FBI personnel — not only from the CIA black site but from the host country entirely — within 48 hours after CIA was granted primacy over Abu Zubaydah's interrogation
- **Quote attributed:** "We know what these CIA guys are going to do; they're going to go completely nuts; we don't want any part of it"

**Robert Mueller** was the Director of the FBI during the years immediately following September 11, 2001. Per [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou): on July 31, 2002 — the day CIA Director George Tenet went to the White House and successfully asked President George W. Bush to remove the FBI from the CIA black site holding [Abu Zubaydah](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/abu-zubaydah) — Mueller withdrew the entire FBI presence from the country.[1][2]

Kiriakou: *"Robert Mueller, who was the FBI director at the time, decided to withdraw all FBI personnel — not just from the secret site but from the country that the secret site was in. He's like, 'We know what these CIA guys are going to do; they're going to go completely nuts; we don't want any part of it.' Everybody withdrew within 48 hours. The CIA began to torture Abu Zubaydah."*[3][4]

## Pulling the FBI out of the country

[John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) says FBI director [Robert Mueller](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/robert-mueller), knowing what the CIA was about to do to [Abu Zubaydah](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/abu-zubaydah), not only pulled [Ali Soufan](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/ali-soufan) but withdrew *all* FBI personnel from the country holding the secret prison — not wanting his people even present while the CIA tortured.[5]

## The 2007–2008 declination letter

Kiriakou says Mueller played a further, separate role in his life: during an FBI investigation of Kiriakou running from December 2007 to December 2008, the Bureau sent his attorney [Plato Cacheris](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/plato-cacheris) an unusual declination letter, concluding Kiriakou had committed no crime and closing the case — a step Kiriakou says the FBI rarely takes. Kiriakou believes Mueller, who he says felt strongly the CIA's torture program was itself a crime, personally instructed the counterintelligence division to send it.[6][7]

## Pulling the FBI out

Kiriakou credits Mueller with the sharpest institutional objection anyone made to the torture programme. The FBI did not merely object: *"as soon as it became apparent to Director Mueller that the CIA was going to begin torturing prisoners, he ordered every single FBI agent out of the country. He said he didn't even want his people in the same country where this was taking place."*[8][9]

## The conflict he discloses

Asked about Mueller in 2018, Kiriakou states his interest before making his argument. In the interest of transparency, he says, Mueller when head of the FBI set up [the task force named after him](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou-task-force) that spearheaded the investigation and ultimately the arrest and prosecution — so he is no friend of Robert Mueller's.[10]

Having said so, he declines the licence it would give him: *"with that said, I don't have to make things up to complain about Robert Mueller."* The complaint he does make is that Mueller is neither the villain nor the figure of veneration then on offer — not, in his phrase, *"the second coming of Christ,"* but a functionary with his own political agenda whether or not he would admit to it, a lifelong Republican of the never-Trump wing of his party who was going after the president because he thought it was his thing to do.[10][11]

Kiriakou reads the staffing of the investigation the same way. The career Justice Department attorneys, assistant U.S. attorneys and FBI agents working for Mueller advance by [showing scalps](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/prosecution-as-promotion), which is why he expects charges such as false statement, perjury, conspiracy and wire fraud to be filed against as many people as possible.[11][12]

## Before the appointment: the case for a special counsel

Kiriakou made the argument for a special counsel in the days before one was appointed, and framed it around a gap in the law rather than around [Donald Trump](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/donald-trump). Asked whether impeachment was possible, he distinguished it from likelihood — *"I think it's possible. I don't yet think that it's probable"* — and then identified what was missing: *"what we need, in the absence of a special prosecutor law, which lapsed I believe in 1999 or 1997"* — the hedge on the year is his own — *"is a special counsel. We need a prosecutor who is able to really do an in-depth investigation and just see where the evidence leads us."*[13]

His expectation of what such an inquiry would find was stated carefully and asymmetrically: *"I think that the evidence will lead us to several different crimes that have been committed by people around President Trump — and who knows, perhaps there are crimes having been committed by President Trump."*[13]

The mechanism he predicted for any political consequence was congressional rather than legal. Republicans *"reluctantly went along with him when he finally came out of the Republican primaries. There's not a whole lot of loyalty there, and I think that if even the Republicans on Capitol Hill smell blood in the water, they'll begin to turn. The first time a Republican member of Congress starts talking about impeachment, I think it's a slippery slope from there."*[14]

## See also

- [Ali Soufan](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/ali-soufan)
- [Abu Zubaydah](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/abu-zubaydah)
- [Enhanced interrogation](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/enhanced-interrogation)
- [Plato Cacheris](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/plato-cacheris)

## Sources

1. CIA Terrorist Hunter on Surviving Assassination & Nailing Al-Qaeda's #3 | John Kiriakou • 250 (2024-11-13), at 2:11:28. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HuyORiWoDM&t=7888s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2024-11-13-julian-dorey-250/
2. CIA Terrorist Hunter on Surviving Assassination & Nailing Al-Qaeda's #3 | John Kiriakou • 250 (2024-11-13), at 2:11:59. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HuyORiWoDM&t=7919s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2024-11-13-julian-dorey-250/
3. CIA Terrorist Hunter on Surviving Assassination & Nailing Al-Qaeda's #3 | John Kiriakou • 250 (2024-11-13), at 2:12:30. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HuyORiWoDM&t=7950s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2024-11-13-julian-dorey-250/
4. CIA Terrorist Hunter on Surviving Assassination & Nailing Al-Qaeda's #3 | John Kiriakou • 250 (2024-11-13), at 2:13:02. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HuyORiWoDM&t=7982s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2024-11-13-julian-dorey-250/
5. John Kiriakou: Exposing Epstein, Mossad, CIA Torture & the Blackmail Playbook (2025-10-02), at 1:29:13. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kiHYQC6SXM&t=5353s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-10-02-truth-hurts-epstein-mossad-blackmail-playbook/
6. S1E24 Moment Of Truth (2026-04-20), at 21:10. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/69e4199dabe143da5bb4bae6/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-04-20-dead-drop-s1e24-moment-of-truth/
7. S1E24 Moment Of Truth (2026-04-20), at 21:42. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/69e4199dabe143da5bb4bae6/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-04-20-dead-drop-s1e24-moment-of-truth/
8. John Kiriakou: A Whistleblower on Torture (2015-12-11), at 23:10. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rss30914fb8&t=1390s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2015-12-11-scheer-intelligence-john-kiriakou-a-whistleblower-on-torture/
9. John Kiriakou: A Whistleblower on Torture (2015-12-11), at 23:45. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rss30914fb8&t=1425s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2015-12-11-scheer-intelligence-john-kiriakou-a-whistleblower-on-torture/
10. The Jimmy Dore Show (2018-08-07), at 09:50. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMAoad0hQUw&t=590s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2018-08-07-the-jimmy-dore-show-the-jimmy-dore-show/
11. The Jimmy Dore Show (2018-08-07), at 10:22. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMAoad0hQUw&t=622s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2018-08-07-the-jimmy-dore-show-the-jimmy-dore-show/
12. The Jimmy Dore Show (2018-08-07), at 10:53. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMAoad0hQUw&t=653s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2018-08-07-the-jimmy-dore-show-the-jimmy-dore-show/
13. Blowing the Whistle / Why Trump Worries Him (2017-05-17), at 08:21. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAmdo2MzzhE&t=501s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2017-05-17-democracy-now-blowing-the-whistle-why-trump-worries-him/
14. Blowing the Whistle / Why Trump Worries Him (2017-05-17), at 08:51. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAmdo2MzzhE&t=531s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2017-05-17-democracy-now-blowing-the-whistle-why-trump-worries-him/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/robert-mueller/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt