Robert Mueller Quotes

Author Image

Robert Mueller

Profession : Public Servant

Birth : August 7, 1944

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

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

I was in my office when - on 9/11. I think I had a number of meetings scheduled. I was just getting to know the bureau. And somebody walked in and said the first plane had - or a plane had struck the World Trade Center, one of the towers.

Robert Mueller

And at that point, I think we all realized it was something tremendously tragic, probably a terrorist attack, and the next step was to go down to our command center and get things going.

Robert Mueller

I didn't know the organization, but the one thing you can say about the FBI, it's tremendously professional.

Robert Mueller

And from the moment that we realized it was a terrorist attack, there isn't an agent or a support person in the FBI that wasn't committed to bringing to justice those who were responsible for this.

Robert Mueller

What we bring to the table is not only our 56 field offices in the United States and our number of resident agencies, but also we have 45 legal attaches overseas.

Robert Mueller

But we had - I think if you look at law enforcement 10 years ago, if you look at the challenges, the FBI was focused excessively on what was happening in the United States.

Robert Mueller

In order to be successful against each of these threats, we have to have a presence overseas, work closely not only with our counterparts in the law enforcement community, but also with the intelligence community.

Robert Mueller

I think around the world, our agents are the best collectors of information you'll find.

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

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

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

Leaking of classified material is a concern.

Robert Mueller

We cannot turn back the clock. We cannot undo the impact of technology. Nor would we want to.

Robert Mueller