Robert Mueller and His Prosecutors:
Who They Are and What They’ve Done
Who They Are and What They’ve Done
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.
Each of the core prosecutors has a specialty,
like political corruption, hacking or money laundering, many of which
have featured in indictments. 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.
The makeup of the team has shifted as
prosecutors and others have departed and some aspects of the
investigation are wrapping up. Here is a guide to the key prosecutors
and what we know so far about the cases they worked on.
The Team
Robert S. Mueller III
Special counsel
Mr. Mueller was appointed in the spring
of 2017 to oversee the investigation into Russia’s election
interference and whether any Trump associates conspired. Having served
for decades in law enforcement, Mr. Mueller was previously best known
for his 12 years as the director of the F.B.I., where he reshaped the
bureau to fight terrorism after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Zainab N. Ahmad
Along with Brandon L. Van Grack, who
has left Mr. Mueller’s team, Ms. Ahmad prosecuted Michael T. Flynn, the
president’s first national security adviser. They helped secure a plea
deal and Mr. Flynn’s cooperation. During her time as a federal
prosecutor in New York, Ms. Ahmad built her reputation by successfully
pursuing high-profile terrorism convictions.
Greg D. Andres
A prominent trial lawyer, Mr. Andres
led the special counsel’s team at the trial of Mr. Manafort and helped
secure Mr. Manafort’s plea deal ahead of what would have been a second
trial. Mr. Andres also assisted in the guilty plea of Alex van der
Zwaan, a lawyer who was charged with lying to investigators in the case.
Mr. Andres made his name as a trial attorney handling
complex money laundering cases. He once was targeted in an
assassination plot by a mob boss who was upset Mr. Andres had subpoenaed
his wife.
Lawrence Atkinson
Mr. Atkinson secured the plea agreement
from Mr. Cohen and the grand jury indictment of 13 Russians who carried
out part of Moscow’s interference effort. 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.
Michael R. Dreeben
A leading expert in criminal law who has made more than 100 oral arguments
before the Supreme Court, some as deputy solicitor general, Mr. Dreeben
is handling pretrial litigation for the office. His aim is to defend
the mandate of the special counsel’s office from legal attacks in court
and to help prevent the office from losing cases on appeal.
Andrew D. Goldstein
Mr. Goldstein worked on Mr. Cohen’s
case and handled the sentencing of George Papadopoulos, a Trump campaign
aide, and some grand jury questioning of associates of Roger J. Stone
Jr., a longtime informal adviser to Mr. Trump. Previously, Mr. Goldstein
led the public corruption unit at the United States attorney’s office
in Manhattan, where he prosecuted Sheldon Silver, the former New York
Assembly speaker who was convicted in 2015 on corruption charges. Mr.
Goldstein worked as a journalist before he became a lawyer, and former
colleagues at Time magazine recalled how he would bring loaves of bread
baked in his bread-making machine to share.
Adam Jed
Mr. Jed has defended the Mueller team
in pretrial litigation, including arguing that certain records should be
sealed from the public in order to protect the open investigation. He
joined the inquiry from the appellate staff of the Justice Department’s
civil division, where he was recognized in 2013 as part of a team that
successfully argued in court that the act outlawing gay marriage was
unconstitutional.
Scott A.C. Meisler
Mr. Meisler joined the special counsel
team from the appellate staff of the criminal division of the Justice
Department. He has been involved in pretrial litigation, including
defending the use of certain pieces of evidence collected for the
Manafort trial.
Elizabeth B. Prelogar
Ms. Prelogar, the office’s resident
Russian speaker, joined the team from the solicitor general’s office and
has been involved in pretrial litigation and witness interviews. Ms.
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.
James L. Quarles III
Mr. Quarles is the special counsel’s
main contact with the White House, tangling with Mr. Trump’s lawyers
over the questioning of the president. At 72, Mr. Quarles is one of the
oldest and most senior members of the team, and he has a history in
Washington: He was a Watergate prosecutor. He was also one of three
lawyers Mr. Mueller brought on from WilmerHale, his former firm.
Jeannie Rhee
Ms. Rhee, a former assistant attorney
general and another former WilmerHale colleague of Mr. Mueller’s, has
had a hand in most of the special counsel’s cases: Mr. Papadopoulos’s,
Mr. Cohen’s and Mr. Manafort’s plea agreements and the indictments of
Russians on charges of interfering in the 2016 election. She once said
that she knew she wanted to be a lawyer after a fourth-grade play in
which she played an attorney who defended a piece of candy on trial for
causing tooth decay.
Brandon L. Van Grack
Mr. Van Grack was on detail from the
Justice Department’s national security division until early October and
was involved in several of the most public elements of the Mueller
investigation, including Mr. Flynn’s and Mr. Manafort’s plea deals, and
Mr. Manafort’s convictions in his August trial. Mr. Van Grack has
returned to the national security division but will still be involved in
some aspects of the special counsel’s work.
Andrew Weissmann
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.
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. Zebley was part of a team of
F.B.I. agents who chased suspected members of Al Qaeda before the Sept.
11 attacks, and he is credited with getting one of the conspirators to
confess in the 1998 embassy bombings in East Africa.
Aaron S.J. Zelinsky
Mr. Zelinsky helped secure a guilty
plea from Mr. Papadopoulos and has handled grand jury questioning of
associates of Mr. Stone. A federal prosecutor on loan from Maryland, he
worked there for the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, when
Mr. Rosenstein was the United States attorney for the state. Mr.
Zelinsky has a bipartisan résumé: He clerked for liberal and
conservative Supreme Court justices and worked at the State Department
during the Obama administration.
The Investigations
Mr. 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?
Mr. Mueller was also authorized to investigate
any potential crimes he came across in conducting the investigation. He
won a conviction and guilty pleas from two top Trump campaign aides,
Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, for hiding their income from consulting
work for a pro-Russian former leader of Ukraine and other crimes. Mr.
Gates and three others also pleaded guilty to lying to investigators,
and Mr. Manafort was accused of lying to prosecutors after agreeing to
cooperate with the inquiry.
The special counsel’s office has also referred
several high-profile cases to other federal prosecutors, including part
of the inquiry into Mr. Cohen, and three cases related to foreign lobbying.
Here are some of Mr. Mueller’s cases, and which prosecutors are involved.
Michael T. Flynn
Ah
Mr. Flynn, tapped as the president’s first
national security adviser, asked Russia’s ambassador to the United
States in late 2016 that the Kremlin hold off on escalating in response
to sanctions imposed by the Obama administration over election
interference.
Mr. Flynn was ousted from his job after only three weeks and admitted to lying about those conversations to F.B.I. agents during the first days of the Trump administration.
Mr. Flynn is also significant to the
investigation into whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice because the
F.B.I. director at the time, James B. Comey, has testified that Mr.
Trump asked him to drop any investigation into Mr. Flynn.
Paul Manafort
Ar
Mr. Manafort, the former Trump campaign
chairman, was convicted at a financial fraud trial stemming from his
earlier work as a consultant for the pro-Russian former leader of
Ukraine. On the verge of a second trial, Mr. Manafort agreed to
cooperate with the special counsel’s investigators and pleaded guilty to
two additional conspiracy charges, but Mr. Mueller later accused him of
breaching his plea deal by lying to prosecutors. Mr. Manafort’s
right-hand man in Ukraine, Konstantin V. Kilimnik, a Russian
Army-trained linguist accused of having ties to Russian intelligence,
has also been indicted on a slew of charges, including money laundering
and conspiracy against the United States.
Rick Gates
Mr. Gates was a longtime business associate of
Mr. Manafort, who brought him aboard the Trump campaign. Like Mr.
Manafort, he was also indicted on bank and tax fraud charges related to
their work in Ukraine and ultimately pleaded guilty to two felonies and
agreed to cooperate with investigators.
George Papadopoulos
Ar
As a foreign policy adviser who lived abroad for
months during the presidential race, Mr. Papadopoulos played only a bit
part in the Trump campaign but a notable role in the Russia
investigation. His spring 2016 meeting with an Australian diplomat in
London, where he described his contact with a Russian middleman,
triggered the F.B.I.’s investigation into Russian election interference.
Mr. Papadopoulos was sentenced to 14 days in jail for lying to F.B.I.
agents in the case.
Richard Pinedo
A
Mr. Pinedo unwittingly helped Russia wage its
social media influence campaign by selling bank account information that
helped the Russians and others to bypass safeguards to gain access to
online financial networks. He was sentenced to six months in prison and
six months of home detention.
Russian Nationals
A
Ze
Two groups of Russians have been indicted: a
network of 13 people and three companies accused of using social media
to sow discord among voters and amplify the American political divide.
They also posed as political activists and stole the identities of
Americans, according to court papers.
The second indictment
accused 12 Russian intelligence officers in the hacking of the
Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential
campaign.
Alex van der Zwaan
Mr. van der Zwaan, formerly a lawyer for the
powerful international corporate law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher
& Flom, pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators who were
interviewing him in their investigation of Mr. Gates. Mr. van der Zwaan
was the first person sentenced in the investigation and served 30 days
in prison.
President Trump
A
Mr. Trump’s firing of Mr. Comey on May 9, 2017,
prompted the investigation into whether he was trying to obstruct the
Russia inquiry. Among the episodes Mr. Mueller is examining: whether Mr.
Trump’s lawyers discussed pardons with Mr. Manafort’s and Mr. Flynn’s
lawyers; whether Mr. Trump tried to force former Attorney General Jeff
Sessions to take back oversight of the investigation after he recused
himself; and whether Mr. Trump tried to fire the special counsel
himself.
Michael D. Cohen
A
Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress
about his pursuit of the building of a Trump Tower in Moscow, a project
that extended well into the 2016 presidential campaign. He also admitted
that he had briefed members of the Trump family about those
discussions, and that he had minimized Mr. Trump’s role in pursuing a
deal. Mr. Cohen agreed to cooperate with the special counsel’s office,
which could win him a lighter sentence.
Roger Stone
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