The far left has rushed to lionize special counsel Robert Mueller as a man of integrity and unquestionable character.
But the man charged with investigating President Donald Trump and allegations of collusion in the 2016 election also seems to have a much darker side — and for 18 years, the mainstream media has largely refused to talk about it.
Critics say Mueller played a major role in helping former President George W. Bush and – later – former President Barack Obama cover up the role of Saudi Arabia in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Family members of the victims have been desperately seeking justice.
At the very least, they want a chance to hold Saudi Arabia accountable in a U.S. court of law.
Lay out the evidence… ALL of it… and let a jury decide if the Saudi government provided aid to the 9/11 hijackers.
But they’ve been stopped every step of the way, and Mueller – who was head of the FBI from just before the attacks until 2013 – has been repeatedly named as one of the key roadblocks.
The Washington Examiner said Mueller and successor James Comey, “engaged in a systematic cover-up of evidence that the Saudi government aided the terrorists who committed the Sept. 11 attacks.”
This isn’t a conspiracy theory.
It’s backed by documents and investigations.
“The hijackers received active support and guidance from rich Saudis, Saudi charities, and top members of the Saudi government,” former Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla) said on “60 Minutes” in 2016.
He said much of the evidence remains classified – and is urging lawmakers to make it public.
And there might be more we’ll never know.
Graham told Harper’s in 2017 that Mueller tried to block Congressional investigators from questioning a key witness in California.
They went anyway, and found what the magazine called “damning” details, such as “the hijackers’ close relationship with Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi living in San Diego with a no-show job at a local company with connections to the Saudi Ministry of Defense and Aviation.”
Attorney Jim Kreindler represents Kathy Owens, who lost her husband in the attacks and is trying to sue to Saudis over it. He told Fox News last year that there’s a “large body of evidence” the Saudi government helped the hijackers with cash, safe houses, English lessons and more.
He added that FBI investigators working the case believe the success to the 9/11 plot hinged on that support.
But most Americans don’t know it – and a key reason for that is Mueller.
“President Bush and Director Mueller — instead of furthering that effort to find the whole story — quashed it,” he said on Fox News. “Interrogations were shut down, documents were kept secret.”
Critics say the Bush administration was trying to get Saudi support for an invasion of Iraq – and revealing the truth about the country’s role in the 9/11 attacks would’ve jeopardized it.
Kreindler said the policy continued under President Barack Obama and FBI director James Comey.
But he’s hoping for it to end under Trump.
“There is no reason for thousands of documents that reveal both the Saudi role and our own government’s coverup for 17 years to be kept secret,” he said.
That’s hardly the only issue with Mueller’s post-9/11 leadership at the FBI.
The Wall Street Journal in 2002 said Mueller’s statements after the attacks were “embarrassing” and that U.S. intelligence had become “more Maxwell Smart than James Bond.”
Mueller, the newspaper said, was either unable or unwilling to change the culture at the FBI – and then, in a stunning rebuke, the Journal called on him to resign.
He didn’t and the rest, as they say, is history.
Now, critics can’t help but wonder if history will repeat and Mueller will censor a few details from his next chapter… just as he did with his Saudi investigation.
— Walter W. Murray is a reporter for The Horn News. He is an outspoken conservative and a survival expert, and is the author of “America’s Final Warning.”