FBI director on Fort Dix plot, US attorneys, domestic threats

Robert Mueller says Fort Dix plotters were set to get weapons outside of the bureau's control.

from the May 10, 2007 edition

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Democrats are zeroing in on charges that the US attorney firings may have resulted, in part, from a desire to influence probes of public corruption. When asked whether Bush administration officials in the Justice Department had interfered with FBI public-corruption investigations, Mueller said, "I have not seen an indication of political pressure in any way adversely affecting any of our investigations."

Mueller was asked how the FBI's reputation was affected by a March 2007 report by the inspector general of the Department of Justice. The IG found the bureau had made widespread illegal and improper use of so-called "national security letters" to obtain Americans' phone and financial records. "Yes, it does hurt to have stumbled there and as you can see we are addressing that," Mueller said. Before the breakfast began, Mueller's aides distributed a sheet listing seven steps the bureau was taking "to correct deficiencies identified" by the inspector general.

Mueller added that, "I tend to think that if you travel around the country and talk to people about the FBI there is a huge amount of residual respect and current respect for the work that we do.... Every one of the mistakes you make, be it a Waco or a [misplacement of] guns and laptops or what have you, becomes a problem for a period of time."

This fall, the director will have completed six of the 10 years in his term. As the breakfast ended he was asked what his greatest accomplishment and disappointment had been since being sworn in on Sept. 4, 2001. "In terms of greatest disappointment, probably it is not being able to have the information technology proceed as fast as I would have liked," Mueller said. When Mueller appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee in late April, Chairman Patrick Leahy (D) of Vermont complained about "a string of costly delays in the FBI's efforts to upgrade its computers."

Known in the bureau for being self-effacing, Mueller said, "The greatest accomplishment so far is not mine, it is really the organization's – the willingness of the FBI and its people to understand in the wake of Sept. 11 that priorities had to change, that we had to do things differently to protect the American public. It is the bureau itself, the agents, the analysts, the professional staff who understand that and have welcomed change, embraced change."

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