Name: Rachel Maddow reacts to Robert Mueller’s passing
Uploaded: 2026-03-22T23:02:31.000Z
Duration: 16 min 25 s
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Robert Mueller, the former FBI director who later became special counsel in charge of investigating Donald Trump's ties to Russia during his first term, passed away on Friday.

Mueller was said to have been suffering from Parkinson's disease for years.

Mueller leaves behind a multi decade legacy where after becoming FBI director in 2001, he went on to transform the Bureau into a 21st century intelligence service that could protect national security and civil liberties.

His work earned him bipartisan praise, working under Republican presidents like George W.

Bush and then later under Democratic President Barack Obama, who asked him to stay on for two more years at the end of Mueller's tenure.

Mueller would later become a household name when he led a two year investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election and its ties to Donald Trump.

Mueller's groundbreaking work resulted in 34 indictments and guilty pleas, including from Trump's former campaign chair Paul Manafort, National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, Deputy campaign chair Rick Gates, and

of course, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen.

And while Mueller did not conclude that Trump had committed a crime, he famously said of the report, quote, it does not exonerate him.

Meanwhile, Trump reacted to Mueller's death on truth social writing, quote, robert Mueller just died.

But whether Trump likes it or not, Mueller's legacy will no doubt leave a lasting impact as someone who dared to try to hold him accountable.

Our friend and colleague Rachel Maddow, host of the Rachel Maddow show on Ms. Now, joins us.

Rachel, no better person to talk to in this network story and Robert Mueller than you.

Thank you so much for making time for us.

And you certainly know this investigation more intimately than anyone else does.

And as I just laid out there, you know, the investigation did not establish the Trump campaign coordinated or conspired with the Russian government in its election activities.

It more importantly, did not exonerate the Trump campaign and led to multiple convictions and guilty pleas from people that were in his inner circle.

What was your reaction to the passing of Robert Mueller and what his passing means for this chapter of Trump's political life?

Well, first of all, Amy, and thanks for having me, you guys.

It's a real privilege to be with you on this topic and on this night.

There aren't very many people for whom I would say this, but

I mean, Robert Mueller is the last in a line of people that I don't think we'll ever see the likes of again.

I mean, simply just the fact that we had a FBI director for 10 years, and

in his case, 12 years, longest serving FBI director since J.

Edgar Hoover after he was appointed during the George W.

Bush administration, then extended by the Democratic president who came after George W.

Bush, who couldn't have been more different than George W. Bush, Barack Obama.

There just aren't very many figures like that in American public life anymore.

I don't mean this in a sort of personal or mean way, but

there aren't many lifelong rock ribbed Republican public officials who are most known for their propriety and their nonpartisan competence and willingness to rise both above party and above, I think, personal intention.

And so he feels like he's from an older time in our history.

But that said, the legacy that I think weighs most heavily now at the time of his passing is what happened after his FBI tenure was done with the Mueller report.

There's a reason on a day like this, we need to remind people what was in Mueller's report, what were the results of his investigation?

And that's because of a failure on his part.

That is because once his investigation and his report were concluded, he was just wildly outmaneuvered by a really serpentine Attorney General named Bill Barr, who played really dirty pool.

It came to the handling and release of the information from Mueller's investigation.

Mueller, I don't know if he was blindsided by it or if he thought Barr was a good guy and would be a straight shooter on this, but

Barr absolutely buried him in terms of the impact of that report.

And given the way that Bill Barr became Attorney General, Mueller and his team should have seen that coming.

If they did see it coming, they should have come up with a way to outmaneuver Barr while he was outmaneuvering them.

And that bureaucratic failure is the most important thing in American history about the Mueller report.

the way they were submarines by a, in my opinion, disreputable, dishonorable set of actions by the Attorney General who handled the release of that report.

Rachel, can you walk us back through some of the most critical findings and revelations from that report?

You know, I don't think anyone at this table would disagree with what you described.

That's in large part because Trump and his allies have done basically everything they possibly could do.

To sideline and push out of public life Republican figures who would be willing to challenge him, who would be seen as credible, who would do this work in a straightforward and facts first manner.

And so, for people who may have forgotten because of the work that has been done to undermine it, to whitewash it, to make sure people barely remember what is in it, can you remind people what the American public learned through this report and why it still matters today?

Yeah, the findings are pretty simple, actually.

And I think that part of the sort of political game that Mueller lost around the release of his findings was making it seem like it was complex or too, too difficult to explain to somebody on the back of an envelope.

They found definite, absolutely conclusive evidence that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump become president, that the Trump campaign was aware of it and expected to benefit from it, and

that they took steps to obstruct the investigation into it.

There were more than two dozen people who were charged with felonies.

They charged the Internet Research Agency.

They charged multiple figures from the Russian government and intelligence services.

They charged Trump's campaign chairman, they charged Trump's campaign deputy campaign chairman.

They charged Trump's national security adviser.

They charged a number of people who were associated with the campaign.

That Trump knew Russia was helping him, and

that Trump tried to make sure that the investigation into it didn't proceed unimpeded.

That should have been enough, and it wasn't.

There was an important element of the way that Mueller drew his conclusions, which is that he basically said, you know, under DOJ rules, we don't charge setting presidents.

And if we can't charge him, then I can't really lay out the evidence against him either, because that would amount to an accusation that's unfair to make because he's not able to rebut it in court, because we're not going to bring him into court.

But I think there were other ways to approach that that would have made it more clear to the American public.

And when Bill Barr, as then Attorney general, newly appointed Attorney general, decided to bury and misrepresent the report to the public, Mueller's response was one.

It was a letter published, you know, 25 days later, sternly saying, hey, hey, that's not what my report means.

But that was kind of the full strategy that Mueller and his team had in terms of dealing with the really underhanded mismanagement.

The underhanded I think treatment of this by Bill Barr, and they just got outplayed.

Robert Mueller got outplayed by Bill Barr, and

that was the end of what should have been a show stopping, certainly presidency stopping investigation with damning conclusions.

So, Rachel, what do you think Mueller could or should have done to not get outmaneuvered here?

I mean, is there an obvious path that he could have taken?

Do we know anything about how Mueller felt, about how he was, in your words, submarined?

Do we know anything about whether he was resentful of it, whether he was suspicious of it, or he just, you know, went on his merry way?

And it would be interesting, you know, to hear from members of his team.

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Rachel Maddow reacts to Robert Mueller’s passing

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