Behind the walls of a nondescript concrete office building in south-west Washington DC, special counsel Robert Mueller has meticulously compiled one of the most important investigations in American history.
There have been 37 indictments or guilty pleas and 199 criminal charges. Five people, including some of Donald Trump’s closest former advisers, have been sent to prison.
And yet for all the political fallout, intrigue over Mueller’s prosecutorial strategy and obsession with the contents of his final report, the office of the special counsel has remained an almost sealed vessel.
Throughout the nearly two-year investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and potential collusion with the Trump campaign, Mueller and his team have given scant comment. They are not known to have leaked a single detail of the report’s contents nor any details of the investigation. By Friday afternoon, after much of Washington had expected the document to have landed in the hands of the attorney general, William Barr, even Trump’s personal attorney had no idea what its status was. By 5pm, the report had been turned over with little fanfare.
Mueller’s reputation as “America’s straightest arrow” is a story of US justice department legend. As FBI director, he helmed myriad sensitive investigations, taking over a week before the 9/11 attacks. He was tasked with transforming the bureau into an international intelligence agency with a mandate of guarding against the next terrorist attack.
He has treated the Russia investigation with the same degree of sensitivity. Recent reports indicate that Mueller’s office was granted Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) status, to ensure information inside remained secure. Smartphones and other electronic devices that can be turned into listening devices or cameras were likely to have been restricted. The office itself has not been publicly located by Mueller’s team, although its whereabouts remains an open secret among close followers of his work.
Those interviewed by Mueller’s investigators have reported being picked up from their lawyer’s offices, hotels or even nearby stations by agents assigned to the investigation, then dropped back at the same location to avoid being spotted going in and out of the building.
Journalists in Washington, accustomed to leaks and counter-leaks on which to base their stories, have been shut out. Prosecutors in Mueller’s team have swatted away questions from reporters at courthouses.
Mueller’s spokesman, Peter Carr, has become renowned among reporters for politely refusing to make statements, give background briefings or talk off the record.
“Thanks,” Carr typically replies to emailed queries. “We’ll decline to comment.”
Meaningful public comment from Carr has been minimal. Most notable was a statement issued in response to a BuzzFeed News piece which claimed Mueller’s office was in possession of emails, texts and testimony indicating Trump directed his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress over the Trump tower project in Moscow.
“BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the special counsel’s office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s congressional testimony are not accurate,” Carr said.
BuzzFeed has stood by its reporting.
Mueller’s style as special counsel could not be further from America’s last high-profile independent investigation into alleged presidential misconduct. Ken Starr’s Whitewater investigation into President Bill Clinton was plagued with leaks.
The Mueller team has elected instead to make its statements through court filings, detailing Russia’s 2016 interference in so-called “speaking indictments” that said more than strictly necessary.
The closest thing to a finding of coordination between Russia and Trump’s team – the allegation that the campaign chairman Paul Manafort shared private polling data with an alleged Russian intelligence asset – is only known publicly because Manafort’s attorneys failed to properly redact a court filing.
The silence from Mueller’s office has been filled by noisier attorneys for people under investigation, who repeatedly – and incorrectly – briefed reporters that Mueller was about to conclude.
Mueller has made no public remarks about the investigation. His only known public comment about anything since his appointment was praise for FBI agents in a tribute video released last November.
The special counsel has rarely even been seen outside his offices in Washington, with two notable exceptions. In July, he and Donald Trump Jr were spotted waiting at a departure gate at Washington’s Reagan airport. Then, in September, Mueller was seen receiving technical assistance at the Apple store in Georgetown.
It should come as no surprise that Friday’s announcement came without flourish. Former colleagues describe this as simply Mueller’s method.
Josh Campbell, a former FBI agent, has recalled asking Mueller in 2015 how his investigation into the NFL’s handling of a player’s domestic abuse case was going.
“Finishing his donut, he replied, ‘Gotta take things one day at a time,’” Campbell said. “Hours later, he released his report.”