Judicial Watch Sues Justice Department for Records on Former FBI Director, Special Counsel Robert Mu...

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice for records regarding the late FBI Director and Special Counsel Robert Mueller (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:26-cv-02566)).

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the Justice Department’s Office of Information Policy (OIP) failed to respond to a March 24, 2026, FOIA request seeking: 

All records in any form related to the former FBI Director, Robert Swan Mueller, III, born on August 7, 1944, in New York City, NY, who died on March 20, 2026.

Mueller served as FBI director from September 2001 to September 2013. During his tenure, the FBI significantly expanded its domestic surveillance authorities. Among other powers, the bureau made extensive use of expanded authorities under the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, including National Security Letters, which allowed the FBI to compel the production of financial, telecommunications and internet records without prior judicial approval while often prohibiting recipients from disclosing the requests. 

Three years after Mueller left the FBI, the bureau launched “Crossfire Hurricane,” also known as “Russiagate,” into allegations of links between Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia. Then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel in May 2017 to continue the investigation. Mueller served in that role until March 2019.

Mueller’s investigation concluded that it “did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

In May 2023, Special Counsel John Durham concluded that the FBI failed to uphold its mission of “strict fidelity to the law” when pursuing Crossfire Hurricane and found that the bureau lacked sufficiently corroborated information to justify opening a full investigation.

In March 2025, President Trump issued a memorandum, calling for the immediate declassification of materials “related to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Crossfire Hurricane Investigation.”

“The American people deserve a full accounting of Robert Mueller’s record—from the FBI’s dramatic expansion of surveillance powers after September 11 to the abusive special counsel investigation targeting President Trump,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The Justice Department should immediately release every record concerning Mueller so Americans can judge his work for themselves.”

Judicial Watch pursued dozens of FOIA lawsuits in connection with the illicit targeting and other abuses of President Trump and his associates.

In October 2020, Judicial Watch uncovered emails between former FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok, who joined the Mueller team in 2017, and former FBI attorney Lisa Page showing that Microsoft Outlook’s Exchange server had to recreate multiple meetings that were “missing” from Page’s initial calendar entries. These missing meetings included the subjects “Going Dark Strategy Meeting,” “Twitter” and “702 Reauthorization Strategy Coordination Bi-Weekly” (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:18-cv-00154)).

In September 2020, Judicial Watch received Justice Department records showing that senior members of Mueller’s Special Counsel’s Office repeatedly and “accidentally” wiped phones assigned to them (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:19-cv-02693)).

 Also in September 2020, Judicial Watch uncovered Justice Department records that included a May 2017 email documenting that Mueller informed the attorney general’s office he was withdrawing from consideration for FBI director. The email raised questions about Mueller’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in July 2019, when he said a May 2017 interview with Trump was “not about me applying for the job” as FBI director (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:19-cv-00481)).

 In July 2020, Judicial Watch uncovered emails showing that Strzok, Page and other top FBI officials in the days before and after Trump’s 2017 inauguration discussed a White House counterintelligence briefing that could “play into” the FBI’s “investigative strategy” (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:18-cv-00154)).

In May 2020, Judicial Watch received the electronic communication (EC) that officially launched Crossfire Hurricane. The document was written by Strzok (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:19-cv-02743)).

In February 2020, Judicial Watch made public Strzok-Page emails showing direct involvement in the opening of Crossfire Hurricane. The records also showed additional “confirmed classified emails” were found on Clinton’s unsecured non-state.gov email server “beyond the number presented” in then-FBI Director James Comey’s statements; Strzok and Page questioned the access the Justice Department was granting Clinton’s lawyers; and Page revealed that the Justice Department was making edits to FBI FD-302 reports related to the Clinton Midyear Exam investigation. The emails also detail a discussion about “squashing” an issue related to the Seth Rich controversy (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:18-cv-00154)).

In February 2020, Judicial Watch uncovered Rosenstein’s communications with former Obama officials, such as Eric Holder, as well as information sharing with the media in the days immediately surrounding the inception of the Mueller investigation (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:19-cv-00481)).

In October 2019, Judicial Watch released Rosenstein’s communications that included a one-line email to Mueller stating, “The boss and his staff do not know about our discussions,” and “off the record” emails with major media outlets around the date of Mueller’s appointment. In May 2017, Rosenstein had written a memo to President Trump recommending that FBI Director James Comey be fired. That day, Trump fired Comey. Three days later, on May 12, Rosenstein sent the email assuring Mueller that Trump and his staff were not included in their “discussions” (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:19-cv-00481)).

In May 2019, Judicial Watch released Justice Department records containing text messages and calendar entries of Mueller special counsel prosecutor Andrew Weissmann showing he led the hiring effort for the special counsel team. Weissmann was formerly the Obama-era chief of the Justice Department’s Criminal Fraud Section  (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:18-cv-01356)).

In July 2018, Judicial Watch received FBI records concerning the assignment of Strzok to Mueller’s operation, showing that Strzok insisted on retaining his FBI security clearance, declassification and other authorities before moving to the Mueller team (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Federal Bureau of Investigation (No. 1:17-cv-02682)). Strzok was removed from the Mueller investigative team in July 2017, with the move becoming public in August. He was reassigned to a human resources position.

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Source: https://www.judicialwatch.org/records-robert-mueller/