Sep 20, 2017 · Aaron Zebley . Joining the prosecution team in June, Zebley had served as Mueller's chief of staff while he was FBI director. Before joining the special counsel's office, he was a partner at law ...
Jun 16, 2017 · A team of lawyers lead by former FBI Director Robert Mueller is currently leading an investigation into President Donald Trump. This began on May 17th, 2017, when Mueller was hired by the Justice ...
Mar 23, 2019 · Brian M. Richardson went to work as an appeals lawyer for Mueller after finishing up a clerkship for Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. He'd helped with the case against Dutch lawyer Alex Van ...
Here are biographies of the 15 lawyers known to be currently working on Mueller’s team. Meet the Mueller team By Marshall Cohen , Tal Yellin , Caroline Kelly and Liz Stark
Dec 27, 2017 · Four—Michael Dreeben, Adam Jed, Scott Meisler, and Elizabeth Prelogar—are appellate attorneys, legal experts likely brought on by Mueller to piece together information unearthed by prosecutors ...
Robert Mueller Team of Investigators: Full List of Lawyers. Former FBI Director Robert Mueller. (Getty) A team of lawyers lead by former FBI Director Robert Mueller is currently leading an investigation into President Donald Trump. This began on May 17th, 2017, when Mueller was hired by the Justice Department as special counsel to look ...
This began on May 17th, 2017, when Mueller was hired by the Justice Department as special counsel to look into Russian interference in the 2016 election and any potential collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. A special counsel like Mueller is allowed to hire his own staff, and Mueller has now assembled a team ...
According to Wired, during the Watergate investigation, he focused on campaign finance research.
James Quarles has donated over $30,000 to Democrats over the years, including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, according to Open Secrets.
A special counsel like Mueller is allowed to hire his own staff, and Mueller has now assembled a team of 13 investigators, according to CNN. However, at this time, only five members of this team have been identified. President Donald Trump has attacked the lawyers investigating him, suggesting that they are “bad and conflicted” people.
Aaron Zebley. Aaron Zebley. (WilmerHale) Finally, Aaron Zebley is a member of the Russia probe. He’s a former FBI official who has worked with Robert Mueller before. Zebley spent seven years as special agent of the FBI in the Counterterrorism Division, also serving as chief of staff to Robert Mueller.
Michael Dreeben is the current deputy solicitor general in charge of the Department of Justice’s criminal docket before the Supreme Court. He has worked in the Solicitor General’s office since the late 1980s, and he is considered to be an expert in criminal law, having argued over 100 cases before the Supreme Court.
Since Mueller's appointment as special counsel in May 2017, at least 18 prosecutors and lawyers have worked on the inquiry, which is tasked with investigating "any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump" and any matters that "may arise directly from the investigation." The probe resulted in 34 people and three companies being criminally charged, and there have been seven guilty pleas and one trial conviction.
From 1973 to 1975, he was an assistant special prosecutor for the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, which helped force Richard Nixon out of office and prosecuted a number of Nixon administration officials. Jeannie Rhee worked with Mueller and Quarles at WilmerHale. She rejoined the firm in 2011, resuming work advising clients who are ...
Kyle Freeny left in October, returning to DOJ's money laundering and asset forfeiture section. She'd worked on the Manafort case, and on the indictment of a dozen Russians charged with hacking into the emails of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman.
Weissmann's greatest successes and failures came when he directed the task force investigating Enron, a giant energy company based in Texas that collapsed in 2001. The team racked up over 30 convictions in the highly complex case, but one of them, involving the company's outside auditing firm Arthur Andersen, was reversed by the Supreme Court.
Aaron Zebley is another WilmerHale alum and is especially close to Mueller; he was his chief of staff at the FBI. Zebley is also a former FBI agent who was involved in an international hunt for al Qaeda terrorists before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
He was so successful he was allegedly targeted for assassination in 2005 by the acting boss of the Bonanno crime family, Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano.
Goldstein, a former Time magazine reporter and high school teacher, also prosecuted the CityTime case, involving an automated timekeeping project for New York City employees that exploded in cost from an expected $63 million to more than 10 times that in what the Department of Justice called “the largest municipal fraud and kickback scheme in history.” The probe, the department said, was "a dogged investigation that involved tracing payments through more than 150 foreign and domestic accounts, poring through hundreds of thousands of emails and project documents, interviewing more than 100 witnesses, and securing cooperation from two key insiders."
While there has been a small amount of turnover in Mueller's staff since his appointment in May, the team of attorneys presently stands at 17. The U.S. code governing special counsels states that "...the identity and prosecutorial jurisdiction of such independent counsel shall be made public when any indictment is returned, or any criminal information is filed, pursuant to the independent counsel’s investigation," but Joshua Stueve, spokesman for the Special Counsel’s Office, told THE WEEKLY STANDARD that the directive applies only to the "the identities of the attorney (s) filing charges." Despite this explanation, only eight of the 15 have signed as parties to the three cases filed so far by the SCO ( U.S. v. Michael Flynn; U.S. v. Paul Manafort, Jr. and Richard Gates III; and U.S. v. George Papadopoulos .)
The remaining six known members of Mueller’s team function as a support staff for the investigation. Four—Michael Dreeben, Adam Jed, Scott Meisler, and Elizabeth Prelogar—are appellate attorneys, legal experts likely brought on by Mueller to piece together information unearthed by prosecutors and determine whether it actually violates federal laws.
Michael Dreeben (Duke ’81) has worked in the solicitor general’s office, which represents the federal government in Supreme Court cases, since 1988, and is widely considered one of America’s preeminent experts in criminal law. Dreeben is one of only eight lawyers ever to have argued more than 100 cases before the Supreme Court. Mueller has reportedly tapped Dreeben to serve as the investigation’s own legal counsel, advising Mueller to ensure that their prosecutorial moves are legally airtight.
Mueller himself is the sole signatory of the indictment of Manafort and Gates. The remaining two cases were filed with plea agreements already in place and documents include the names of Mueller subordinates.
Subsequent court filings, however, have shown that the Manafort case involves prosecutors Andrew Weissmann, Greg Andres, and Kyle Freeny, seasoned trial attorneys with substantial experience prosecuting money laundering and fraud.
The three SCO lawyers who worked on the George Papadopoulos case, according to court documents, are Andrew Goldstein, Jeannie Rhee, and Aaron Zelinsky.
The only criminal prosecutor known to be on Mueller’s team who is not yet assigned to a case is Rush Atkinson, a 2010 NYU Law grad who has worked for the Justice Department since 2011, first as an attorney adviser in the national security division, then as a trial attorney for fraud cases in the criminal division.
Mueller has added two prosecutors to his legal team since the probe began.
Scott Meisler joined the special counsel in June 2017, according to Mueller spokesman Peter Carr. Meisler joined the special counsel in June 2017. Prior to that, he had worked as an appellate attorney for the Department of Justice’s criminal division since 2009.
Mueller’s team has come under fire in the past year for perceived biases against the President. Conservatives have pointed to team members’ donations to Democratic causes as a major red flag, as well as a 2016 cache of text messages disparaging then-candidate Trump recovered from former team members FBI Agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page. Justice Department guidelines do not allow consideration of party affiliation to affect personnel decisions. Special counsel Mueller himself has been a registered Republican in the past and was first appointed FBI Director by President George W. Bush.
Harold Koh, formerly of the State Department, has said he brought Zelinsky in as a special assistant at the State Department, where he worked the cases of Americans held hostage abroad. Koh calls Zelinsky “an incredible team leader.”. Two FBI veterans have left the team since its inception. Peter Strzok, who had been tapped by Mueller ...
Aaron Zebley is a former partner at the law firm WilmerHale, who previously served with Mueller at the FBI and has served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia. Zebley served as chief of staff to both Mueller and his successor as FBI Director, James Comey.
Andrew Goldstein is an attorney on loan from the Southern District of New York, where he served as former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s Public Corruption chief, and received the Director’s Award from the Bharara in 2015. Goldstein investigated and prosecuted the CityTime case, which the Department of Justice then referred to as “the largest municipal fraud and kickback scheme in history.” Goldstein received further praise from Bharara upon his June appointment to the Mueller probe, when Bharara tweeted, “Best of best in every way. Fair, tough, smart.” Goldstein donated more than $750 to Obama’s 2012 campaign and more than $2,800 to Obama’s 2008 campaign.
Peter Strzok, who had been tapped by Mueller to help lead the probe, left the team last summer, sources told ABC News in August. As chief of the FBI's counterespionage section, he helped oversee the FBI's investigation into Clinton's use of a private email server when she was the U.S. secretary of state.
Quarles is another of Mueller's former WilmerHale colleagues who left the firm to join the special counsel. He is acting as the investigation's point person for communicating with the White House, and has been relaying all of Mueller's requests to the Trump team with increasing frequency, according to The Daily Beast.
Quarles is a well-respected, longtime litigator who served as an assistant special prosecutor in the Watergate investigation early in his career — experience that gives him a significant edge in the Trump-Russia probe, according to colleagues.
Dreeben is best known for having argued more than 100 cases before the Supreme Court — a feat that fewer than 10 other attorneys have accomplished in the high court's history. Peers say his hiring reveals how seriously Mueller is taking the investigation, and how wide-ranging it ultimately could be.
Justice Department in traditional morning coat on his way to argue his one-hundredth case before the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, U.S. April 27, 2016.
Before jumping to the Mueller probe, Goldstein led the public corruption unit in the US Attorney's office in the Southern District of New York, where he worked under Preet Bharara, the federal prosecutor who was famously fired by Trump in March after refusing to resign.
Attorney Andrew Weissmann talks with the media outside the federal courthouse in Houston Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2002 after charging former Enron executive Andrew Fastow with fraud, money laundering and conspiring to inflate the company's profits and enrich himself at the company's expense.
Mueller has pursued a basic set of questions: How did Russia, on the orders of President Vladimir V. Putin, wage a campaign to illegally influence the 2016 presidential race? Did any Trump associates conspire with Russia’s interference? Has President Trump tried to obstruct the inquiry?
He also played a role in the sentencing of Richard Pinedo, a California man who unwittingly aided the interference. The son of a journalist, Mr. Atkinson is one of the youngest members of the Mueller team. He graduated from law school eight years ago and joined the Justice Department’s national security division.
They come from familiar places: the Justice Department’s criminal division, federal prosecutors’ offices in New York and around Washington and a law firm where Mr. Mueller worked.
Prelogar deferred her admission to Harvard Law School to pursue a Fulbright scholarship in St. Petersburg, Russia, and went on to clerk for two Supreme Court justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan. She also once competed in the Miss America pageant as Miss Idaho.
One of the highest-profile prosecutors working for Mr. Mueller, Mr. Weissmann has prosecuted Mafia bosses and led the task force investigating Enron more than a decade ago. He specializes in flipping witnesses and oversaw or took part in almost every early aspect of the special counsel’s investigation, including Mr. Manafort’s prosecution and the case against Mr. van der Zwaan. Mr. Weissmann’ s aggressive tactics have prompted criticism, but some defense lawyers have noted his compassionate side, and his interests outside work extend to sports — he once attended tennis camp as an adult.
Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, has marshaled prosecutors, F.B.I. agents and other lawyers to investigate Russia’s 2016 election interference and whether any Trump associates conspired. The team has secured indictments against dozens of people and three companies, one trial conviction and a handful of guilty pleas in the highest-profile political inquiry in a generation.
Aaron Zebley. Considered Mr. Mueller’s closest associate, Mr. Zebley often serves as an intermediary between Mr. Mueller’s office and senior officials at the Justice Department who oversee the investigation. He was Mr. Mueller’s chief of staff at the F.B.I. and followed him to WilmerHale. Mr.
Tuesday morning on Good Morning America, Newt Gingrich blasted Mueller and his still-forming team. “These are bad people,” Newt Gingrich told George Stephanopoulos. “I’m very dubious of the team.”
Aaron Zebley (left) and Robert Mueller (right) arrive for a court hearing at the Phillip Burton Federal Building in San Francisco, on April 21, 2016. Jeff Chiu/AP
Zebley, who has worked alongside Mueller since their departure from the Hoover Building in 2013, attended the College of William & Mary—James Comey’s alma mater—and went on to the University of Virginia’s law school, a prime feeder school for federal prosecutors, including Mueller himself.
Then Mueller added Michael Dreeben, who has worked for years in the Justice Department’s solicitor general’s office, which argues the government’s cases before the Supreme Court. “Dreeben is 1 of the top legal & appellate minds at DOJ in modern times,” tweeted Preet Bharara, the former top Manhattan federal prosecutor.
From the list of hires, it’s clear, in fact, that Mueller is recruiting perhaps the most high-powered and experienced team of investigators ever assembled by the Justice Department.