Robert Mueller Quotes:
All I’m going to tell you is investigations, whether it be this and others, where you have partial facts, analysts, agents are always trying to interpret what those facts mean, extrapolate from them what they mean.
Robert Mueller
If you look at the 19 hijackers who came to the United States in Sept. 11 to commit those acts, if you’d looked at them before they got onto a plane, you could probably say the same thing. There were various levels of expertise, various levels of competence.
Robert Mueller
Prior to the passage of the Patriot Act, it was very difficult – often impossible – for us to share information with the Central Intelligence Agency, with NSA, with the other intelligence agencies, and likewise, for them to share information with us.
Robert Mueller
It’s because we need to determine who in this country is poised, positioned to commit terrorist acts.
Robert Mueller
We cannot go up on a wire. We cannot do a search without a judge on the FISA Court approving it and determining that we have met the standard that has been set forth by Congress in order to utilize these techniques.
Robert Mueller
I would say in just about every investigation we have, there will be differences of opinion, where you have partial facts, as to what those facts mean.
Robert Mueller
There’ll be differences of opinion in just about every intelligence analysis that you make.
Robert Mueller
So without getting into the specifics, I can tell you that to the extent that investigation is a relatively important investigation and meaningful, the president would have been periodically briefed.
Robert Mueller
As I said before, there are often disagreements as to what a particular set of facts mean. That is not at all unusual, and one shouldn’t read into it more than is there.
Robert Mueller
Leaking of classified material is a concern.
Robert Mueller
In planning an attack, persons have various roles.
Robert Mueller
The 19 hijackers that came over here to commit the attack on Sept. 11, there were those that were at the bottom of the line. There were those who were the principal conspirators. There were those who were the pilot. Everybody has a role.
Robert Mueller
The FBI’s principal priority right now is protecting the United States against another terrorist attack.
Robert Mueller
Secondly, not only have we put additional agents on counterterrorism, but we’ve also built up our analytical structure so that we’re better positioned to analyze the information we have.
Robert Mueller
So there is a foreign intelligence purpose for every one of our FISA warrants.
Robert Mueller
They’re – FBI agents are some of the finest people you’ll find anyplace in the country or the world. And I’m lucky to have the opportunity to work with them.
Robert Mueller
In the United States, it’s the mandate of the FBI to gather information relating to terrorism, go out and collect it, to do the interviews, to do the investigative work.
Robert Mueller
And so every one of us in the FBI, I don’t care if it’s a file clerk someplace or an agent there or a computer specialist, understands that our main mission is to protect the public from another September 11, another terrorist attack.
Robert Mueller
I know when I was here prosecuting homicides in the District of Columbia, one of the most effective units here was the cold case squad, which had on it FBI agents, as well as Metropolitan Police Department homicide detectives working together.
Robert Mueller
But since September 11, we have made every effort to try to work closely with state and local law enforcement.
Robert Mueller
People talk about the Patriot Act that was passed immediately in the wake of September 11. What the Patriot Act did was break down the walls between the various agencies.
Robert Mueller
I asked a Burmese why women, after centuries of following their men, now walk ahead. He said there were many unexploded land mines since the war.
Robert Mueller