Word: Robert Mueller

Craig Pyes - A great anecdote from Jane Mayer in the New Yorker on Mueller:

"One short anecdote illustrates why Robert Mueller has a sterling reputation as a defender of the rule of law, and why he may be exactly the person the country needs in this tumultuous moment. Back in the first days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, there was such white-hot hatred for the perpetrators and suspected terrorists that it spilled over to their American defense lawyers. In those days, even the American Civil Liberties Union backed away from providing legal defense for the detainees at Guantánamo, for fear of the political and public-relations fallout that would ensue. The few lawyers who dared represent these individuals were treated as lepers. At one Washington dinner party, as I report in my book “The Dark Side,” the issue caused guests to turn on Thomas Wilner, a well-heeled corporate law partner who had stepped forward to defend a Guantánamo detainee. According to Wilner, Tom Green, a prominent criminal-defense lawyer at the table, asked him how he could possibly justify representing such a client. Amid the chilly silence that followed, according to Wilner’s account, another guest stood up. It was Mueller, then the F.B.I. director, who raised a glass and said, “I toast Tom Wilner. He is doing what an American should.” Hopefully, Mueller will now do the same."  —Jane Mayer