Robert Mueller, New Most Powerful Man in D.C. is No Stranger to National Football League

On Wednesday, Former FBI Director Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel to the investigation of collusion between Russia and the Donald Trump Presidential campaign. He served as the second-longest director in Federal Bureau of Investigation history, behind only the iconic J. Edgar Hoover.

He is also no stranger to fans of the National Football League and the Baltimore Ravens, as Mueller was the man who oversaw the NFL’s mishandling of the infamous Ray Rice videotape (much more on that in a bit).

As Charles Krauthammer wrote in the National Review, Robert Mueller is now: “the man who is in charge who has a mandate to investigate essentially anything and is politically untouchable, cannot be fired. Technically he can; politically he can’t. He’s the most powerful man in Washington.”

Yes, it’s Bob Mueller, not Donald J. Trump, Michael Pence or Paul Ryan, who is now the most powerful man in the nation’s capital. Trump fired the man who succeeded Mueller as FBI director, James Comey, on May 9th, and then freely admitted, at least twice in public, he did so because Comey was investigating his ties to Russia.

The investigation is also targeting Trump’s son-in-law and White House Senior Advisor, Jared Kusher, who was in Colorado the same exact day as Roman Abramovich, Chelsea FC Owner and Vladimir Putin confidant.

It’s also worth mentioning that Abramovich’s wife is also close friends with Trump’s daughter and Kushner’s wife, Ivanka.

Getting back to Mueller, the United States Congress passed legislation in 2011 to extend his term as leader of the FBI from the usual decade, and thus gave him a 12-year tenure. He’s a former Marine, a Vietnam veteran and a jock (he played lacrosse at Princeton, and captain the soccer, lacrosse and hockey teams in high school).

He’s served under both GOP and Democratic presidential administrations, and is regarded to be nonpolitical. He’s not just very good at what he does, he’s very well liked too, and highly respected on both sides of the aisle. The extension of Robert Mueller ‘s FBI term passed the Senate 100-0, and back in 2001, when he was initially confirmed, the vote was also unanimous- 98-0.

Since retiring from the FBI, Mueller has been involved in a few high-profile investigations, including the NFL and Ray Rice.

Via CNN

In 2015, Mueller conducted an inquiry into the NFL’s handling of a video of former running back Ray Rice punching his then-fiancée. And last year, Mueller was asked by Booz Allen Hamilton to conduct a security review after a contractor was arrested for allegedly stealing national security secrets.

You’ll recall how badly the NFL botched the handling of the Ray Rice situation. Initially, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell only gave Rice a slap on the wrist (a two week suspension). That was before the highly disturbing video (embedded below) had surfaced. Goodell and the NFL claimed that they had not seen the video, although that claim always remained dubious.

Overall, there was malfeasance all around, and it was a situation that required someone to police the police, so to speak.

That’s exactly was Robert Mueller does, and has been doing his whole life.

Mueller did the same job last year with Volkswagen, when they were caught cheating on their emissions tests. Trump bragged to his Russian comrades that he had taken the pressure off himself in the Russia collusion investigation because he had just fired Comey. The total opposite is true.

With Robert Mueller now on the case, the pressure is only going to get ramped up further.

Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes to WGN CLTV and KOZN.

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