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Department of Justice, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Department/Agency: Department of Justice
Position:
Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Executive Schedule: Executive Level II - Presidential Appointment with Senate Confirmation
Major Responsibilities:
- Uphold and enforce the criminal laws of the United States
- Protect the country from foreign intelligence, espionage and terrorist activities
- Combat public corruption and white-collar crime
- Thwart cyber-based attacks and high-technology crimes
Key Competencies and Preferred Qualifications:
- Experience as judge or prosecutor
- Law enforcement background
- Sophisticated understanding of complex criminal enterprises
Insight:
There are 32 federal law enforcement agencies. By far the most prominent is the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the principal investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Justice and the premiere crime-fighting agency in the country. It is, as FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III, noted in a July 2008 speech marking the bureau's 100th anniversary, "one of the world's few intelligence and law enforcement agencies combined." From FBI headquarters, 56 field offices and 61 overseas offices, the FBI's 12,800 special agents and 18,000 other staff fight violent crime and terrorism, protect the country from cyber-attack, chase bank robbers and kidnappers, and go after crooked politicians. The bureau's motto is Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity (FBI). Its history is both colorful and controversial. Its most famous director, J. Edgar Hoover, led the agency for 48 years and kept dossiers on the private lives of politicians, civil rights leaders, dissidents and celebrities. Hoover was considered so powerful that no president dared replace him. Congress decided after Hoover died in his sleep at age 77 to limit FBI directors to a single 10-year term. The job has proved difficult for several of his successors, from controversies over its lethal tactics at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, in 1993 to its investigation of the Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta in 1996 and the probe of Wen Ho Lee, a government scientist indicted in 1999 but later cleared of charges that he leaked nuclear secrets to China. In 1997, the FBI's crime lab was found by the Justice Department's inspector general to be so sloppy that thousands of criminal cases were jeopardized. The bureau's darkest hour occurred in 2001 when it found a traitor in its midst. Robert Hanssen, an FBI counterintelligence agent who had been peddling secrets to the Soviet KGB for more than two decades, is now serving life in prison. Mueller, a Princeton-educated federal prosecutor and decorated Vietnam war veteran, took the oath of office as FBI director on Sept. 4, 2001, a week before 19 Islamic extremists hijacked four commercial jetliners, toppled the World Trade Center towers, slammed into the Pentagon and took 3,000 lives. His predecessor, Louis J. Freeh, had taken office six months after the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, a car bombing that killed six people in February 1993. Fighting espionage and foreign intelligence agents has always been part of the FBI's mission, but inevitably the focus on stopping terrorists and terrorism intensified after the 9/11 attacks. In his speech on the bureau's 100th anniversary, Mueller said, "In the wake of the September 11 attacks, it became clear that the FBI's No. 1 priority must be the prevention of another terrorist attack. We refocused our mission, revised our priorities, and realigned our work force. We strengthened lines of communication between the Bureau and our partners in the global intelligence and law enforcement community. And we are now stronger and better equipped to confront the threats we face today." Many more Arabic-speaking agents have been hired on Mueller's watch. Mueller's single, 10-year term extends to September 2011; unless he chooses on his own to step down, he will remain FBI director for the first 32 months of the Obama administration. No FBI director since Hoover has served a full 10-year term (William H. Webster came close, serving nine years and nine months before leaving the post to direct the Central Intelligence Agency in 1987; Freeh stepped down in June 2001 after nearly eight years on the job). Mueller once worked for Attorney General-designate Eric Holder as Holder's hand-picked top homicide prosecutor for the District of Columbia in the late 1990s. The Washington Post, in a recent article noting that the FBI director will be one of several high-profile holdovers in the new administration, said that, "Behind the scenes, Mueller has pushed back on some of the more controversial legal policy decisions during the George W. Bush years. In 2004, along with other senior Justice officials, Mueller was prepared to resign over the administration's warrant-less wire tapping program. He removed FBI agents from interrogation sessions of terrorism suspects held at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba after hearing allegations of abuse." The Post also reported, "In a rarity among Bush administration officials, Mueller has backed calls by local and state police for more resources to combat traditional crimes. During the campaign, Obama called for more funds to support such authorities, and he and Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. said they would consider additional funding to hire more FBI agents to shore up ordinary criminal enforcement." The Post article went on: "But the FBI may part company with Obama on other issues. Mueller has championed new guidelines, set to take effect Dec. 1, that give agents pursuing terrorism leads the power to conduct long-term surveillance of suspects, engage in pretext interviews in which agents conceal their identities and infiltrate groups that the FBI thinks may threaten national security. Obama has not spoken out on the guidelines, which have roiled civil-liberties advocates, but has indicated support for a new domestic intelligence czar who would provide more oversight of the FBI's intelligence operations." As an Illinois state senator, Obama helped pass a law requiring the video taping of interviews with murder case suspects. "FBI agents have resisted an across-the-board requirement for interview taping," the Post reported. In the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the FBI and other intelligence agencies were scrutinized for whether they could have done anything to identify to prevent the worst terrorist attacks on American soil. When an FBI agent in Phoenix sent a memo to headquarters in July 2001 reporting that Osama bin Laden might be sending followers to civil aviation schools in the United States, there was no follow-up, according to The 9/11 Commission Report.. The managers of the Osama bin Laden and Radical fundamentalist units at FBI headquarters did not even see the memo until after the attacks, although it was addressed to them. The FBI's portfolio has long mirrored the state of America's criminal psyche, what crimes were being committed and the insecurity and uncertainty of the times. The bureau has gone from an agency apprehending car thieves, petty criminals and bank robbers to playing a central role in the war on terrorism and combating cyber-based attacks and high technology crimes. It has jurisdiction over 200 types of crimes including public corruption, organized crime, and significant violent crime, sexual exploitation of minors, mail fraud, bank fraud, illegal gambling, racketeering and financial crimes including securities fraud. The FBI had already stepped up its counter-terrorism efforts in the wake of the first 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York , the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, and the arrest of the Unabomber in 1996. The USA Patriot Act, enacted just weeks after 9/11, expanded the FBI's authority to obtain telephone, Internet, and financial data about those whose activities may be relevant to a terrorist investigation. This has prompted concern and criticism from civil liberties groups. The bureau's first 30 years were a far simpler time. In 1919, the FBI was involved in the Palmer raids, tracking down left-wing radicals as "un-American." In the 1920s, the bureau went after bootleggers for violating Prohibition, the law that banned alcohol in the United States from 1920 to 1933. It tracked down and killed several notorious gangsters, including John Dillinger and George "Baby Face" Nelson, as well at Kate "Ma" Barker. In the 1940s, it investigated wartime spies, and in the 1950s it hunted for alleged communists as part of the McCarthy-era "Red Scare." The bureau developed the case that led to the conviction and execution in 1953 of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for turning U.S. nuclear secrets over to Moscow. With its "most wanted" lists, the bureau often has been glamorized on the big screen and on television shows. Its dramatic role in American life goes far beyond television or movie scripts. The FBI's Deputy Director William Mark Felt Sr.,(1972-74) was identified in 2005 as "Deep Throat," the whistleblower who helped Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein break the Watergate story and eventually bring down President Nixon for orchestrating a cover-up of that political break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters.. The FBI story is told on the front pages, not just in history books. The agency was in the headlines again in December 2008 when its agents and its wiretaps unmasked an alleged scheme by Illinois Gov. Rudy Blagojevich to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama to the highest bidder. In a speech in July 2008 at a ceremony marking the bureau's 100th anniversary, Mueller said, "Today's FBI is often, and I believe accurately, described as one of the world's few intelligence and law enforcement agencies combined. The culture of the FBI is now, and for the past 100 years has been, a culture of hard work and dedication to protecting the United States, no matter what the challenges.
Key Relationships – Within the Government:
Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General
National Security Advisor, The White House
National Security Council, The White House
Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy, The White House
Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, Homeland Security Council, The White House
Director, National Security Agency
Director of National Intelligence
Director and Deputy Director, Central Intelligence Agency
Under Secretary of Defense for IntelligenceUnder Secretary of Treasury for Terrorism and Foreign Intelligence
Director, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, U.S. Department of Treasury
Director, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives, Treasury
Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Intelligence & Analysis
Director, U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Administrator and Deputy Administrator, Drug Enforcement Administration
Deputy Commissioner for Services and Enforcement, Internal Revenue Service, Treasury
Chief, Criminal Investigation, IRS, Treasury
Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs
Key Relationships – Outside the Government:
International Police Organization (INTERPOL)
International Association of Chiefs of Police
Executive Director, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
Nomination Referred to:
Senate Judiciary Committee
Current Position Profile:
1. Robert S. Mueller, III J.D. (Confirmed 2001). Former federal prosecutor. Assistant attorney general and head of Criminal Division in first Bush administration. U.S. Attorney in San Francisco. Practiced law in Boston. Earned Bronze Star and Purple Heart leading Marine rifle platoon in Vietnam.
Recent Position Profiles:
2. Louis J. Freeh, J.D. (1993-2001), Former federal judge and prosecutor. Spent six years as FBI field agent after law school. After stepping down as FBI director, became general counsel to a bank and founded a consulting firm
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