Keri Johnson

I'm Keri Johnson.

I cover the Justice Department.

I'm Tamara Keith.

I cover the White House.

Yeah, he really was a towering figure.

He had been a prosecutor for many years in U.S.

attorney's offices around the country.

He ran the criminal division at the Justice Department.

And then he was sworn in to lead the FBI just a week before the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

And that really required him.

to turn the FBI into something of an intelligence-gathering agency.

His mandate from President George W. Bush was to make sure nothing like that ever happened again and to try to get the FBI to gather intelligence, connect the dots to prevent those kinds of terror plots from taking hold in the U.S.,

And he actually was the longest serving FBI director since J. Edgar Hoover.

He stayed through the rest of the W. Bush term.

And then when President Obama arrived, he asked Mueller to stay on another two years.

That required Congress to act.

The Senate unanimously confirmed him 100 to nothing for two more years in that job.

And then he thought he would go into private practice and maybe teach a little.

Things didn't quite work out that way.

And, you know, I should say that Mueller came into this job, which turned out to be very controversial, having a wonderful reputation.