Smiling alongside John Kerry at their elite New Hampshire boarding school, this is Robert Mueller decades before before he began investigating Donald Trump's election campaign.

Mueller, who was born Robert Swan Mueller III, was a star student in the class of 1962 at St Paul's in Concord where fees today cost $60,000 a year.

Mueller, now 72, was part of the Missionary Society, a member of the Library Association and the vice president of the athletic association.

The future director of the FBI became the lacrosse captain and played hockey with Kerry, the future Democratic presidential candidate, yearbook pictures obtained by DailyMail.com show.

The contrast with Trump's childhood is stark - although it is the difference not between wealth and poverty, but between the son of a scrappy self-made man from Queens and the son of an establishment insider.

Elite: St Paul's in New Hampshire is one of the boarding schools of choice for 'conservative Wasp families'. Mueller (circled, front) and Kerry (circled, rear) played together on three teams, including lacrosse - which Mueller captained

Preppy: The year was 1962 when John Kerry (front) and Robert Mueller, standing directly behind him posed for their senior class photo

More sport: Mueller (left) and Kerry (right) also played in St Paul's soccer team. School records suggest neither played football or baseball in their senior years

Head to head: Military academy graduate Donald Trump is now being investigated by prep school product Robert Mueller

Not so Waspy: Trump (center) attended New York Military Academy. Its families were mostly drawn not from the New York elite but New York city parents who had found themselves wealthy enough to afford to send their children to a boarding school

Now the product of Wasp privilege is taking on Trump.

Mueller is the focus of attacks by Republicans after being appointed the special counsel to investigate possible collusion by the Trump campaign with Russia.

Trump supporters say they are concerned about his objectivity as some of his legal team have donated money to Democrats.

Mueller himself has no political affiliation - but he is from a very different background to Trump.

He had a privileged upbringing first in Princeton, New Jersey, and then in the Main Line, the wealthy suburb of Philadelphia, where his father, Robert Mueller Jr was a lifelong DuPont executive who had served as a Navy officer in the Atlantic and Mediterranean World War II.

He was first educated at Princeton County Day School, where he was credited in 1956 for his clarinet playing.

Then Mueller's parents - his father was a Princeton graduate, his mother the scion of a railroad tycoon's family - sent him to St Paul's, whose alumni include members of the aristocratic Vanderbilt family.

In contrast Trump's parents sent him to New York Military Academy, which while a private boarding school, was hardly the feeder to the Ivy League which Mueller attended.

The parents were mainly from New York City, newly well-off but not well-connected, and looking for their children to do well.

The military academy's students over the years have included John Gotti Jnr, son of the 'dapper don' John Gotti, Francis Ford Coppola, the director, and Stephen Sondheim, the composer.

In contrast St Paul's parents at the time were drawn from the Brahmin elite.

Vanity Fair magazine said 'its main constituency has traditionally been the conservative old Wasp families of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia - the plutocracy that has been running the country for generations'.

The schools alumni include J.P Morgan jnr; Cornelius Vanderbilt III; John Jacob Astor IV, the Astor scion who died on the Titanic; William Randolph Hearst, who did not graduate; John Lindsay, the last Wasp to be New York mayor in the 1970s; Gary Trudeau, the Doonesbury cartoonist; dozens of U.S. ambassadors and senators ; and perhaps ominously, Archibald Cox, the Watergate special prosecutor.

Yearbook photos show Mueller with a thick head of dark hair - his hair is now gray and thinned - and a blazer and a tie.

Another from 1962 shows Mueller and Kerry on the hockey team together posing for a team shot.

The yearbook says that Mueller was a member of the Isthmian athletic club and and played soccer for them in 1959 and 1960, rising to captain in 1961.

He also played hockey and lacrosse and became Isthmian captain in both sports.

Hockey time: Robert Mueller (center) was captain of the hockey team and John Kerry (also circled) also played on it. The team had little success

Yearbook entry: Mueller's official photograph and records show how he was deeply involved in sports and was also part of the religious life of the school, which has Episcopalian roots. Kerry however is Catholic and had to take a cab to mass

Bastion of privilege: Elite boarding school St Paul's now costs $60,000 a year - although it has also been caught up in a sex scandal which found 13 former faculty and staff had credible accusations of abuse between 1952 and 1999.

Ultra-preppy: Mueller captained one of the school's soccer teams in 1962 before graduating and attending Princeton.

Home of the elite: St Paul's was described by Vanity Fair as serving 'the conservative old Wasp families of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia - the plutocracy that has been running the country for generations'

Photos show Mueller sitting and smiling with the hockey program committee. In another showing a soccer team he is smiling with the ball in his hands and a sweater with the letter 'I' on it.

Mueller and Kerry are also together in a photo of the soccer team in which they pose wearing black and white striped shirts.

After leaving St Paul's Mueller attended Princeton, where he studied politics.

Trump did not initially attend an Ivy League school, going first to Fordham, in the Bronx, but transferred after two years to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Mueller joined the Marine Corps, trained as an officer at Qauntico, Virginia, and was awarded a Purple Heart and the Bronze Star while leading a rifle platoon in Vietnam.

He said that he was inspired to join the Marines because of the death in combat of one of the lacrosse players he knew, David Hackett, who had been a year ahead of him.

'There were a number of us who felt we should follow his example and at least go into the service,' he told UVA Lawyer in 2002.

Kerry was also a decorated Vietnam officer as a Navy lieutenant, receiving the silver star, bronze star and three purple hearts.

His naval career came under scrutiny in his failed presidential run.

In contrast Trump avoided being drafted with a series of deferments, then a medical exemption for bone spurs.

Mueller served as a US attorney in San Francisco and Boston before moving to Washington where he worked as a prosecutor on cases like the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Former CIA Director George Tenet has described Mueller as a 'high Protestant with a locked jaw, blue blazer, khaki pants, penny loafers, maybe a little Vitalis and Old Spice to boot'.

He became director of the FBI on September 4 2001, a week before the 9/11 attacks, and served until 2013.

Kerry, now 73, served as a Democratic Massachusetts Senator before running for the presidency in 2004 but losing to George W Bush.

President Obama appointed him Secretary of State during his second term.

Mueller's appointments to his team to investigate Trump's campaign have so far included James Quarles, whom Mueller brought over from his old law firm, WilmerHale.

Wasp: Former CIA Director George Tenet has described Mueller as a 'high Protestant with a locked jaw, blue blazer, khaki pants, penny loafers, maybe a little Vitalis and Old Spice to boot'. Trump's background is privileged - but not as elite

Under fire: Those close to Trump are increasingly scrutinizing Mueller

Vietnam careers: Mueller was a decorated Marine officer, while Kerry joined the Navy, where he was warded the Silver Star, Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. But when he ran for president, his record in command of a Swift Boat came under scrutiny

Political career: Robert Mueller made his life in prosecution and the law but Kerry became a senator, failed presidential candidate and Barack Obama's secretary of state

Quarles has given $33,000 including cash for Democratic Presidential candidates Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, Kerry, Obama and Hillary Clinton.

According to Federal Election Commission filings, he also gave $10,000 to House Democrats and another $10,000 to Senate Democrats.

Jeannie Rhee, another former WilmerHale lawyer whom Mueller has on his team, has donated $18,000 to Democrats and gave the maximum $2,700 each year to Clinton's Presidential campaign.

Mueller's critics have also raised concerns that Mueller is good friends with James Comey, the former FBI director who was fired by Mr Trump and is now a key witness in the Russia investigation.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who endorsed Trump, has tweeted that Republicans are 'delusional' if they think Mueller will not be biased.

Trump was reportedly considering firing Mueller this week but has decided against it.

He appeared to acknowledge last Friday morning that he is personally being investigated, which his lawyer then said was not the case.

St Paul's has also faced investigation.

An independent investigation into sexual misconduct at the elite New Hampshire school published in May found credible allegations against 13 former faculty and staff.

St. Paul's School released a report detailing allegations against a dozen men and one woman who worked at the prestigious institution between 1952 and 1999 - covering the time of Kerry and Mueller's education.

The list includes former teachers, chaplains, a counselor and an admissions officer accused of a range of misdeeds.

A few were fired, but most were quietly 'moved on' with letters of recommendations for their next jobs, according to the Boston law firm Casner & Edwards.

In 2015, St Paul's made national headlines when recent graduate Owen Labrie was convicted of misdemeanor sexual assault and other charges involving a female freshman.

Prosecutors say he assaulted the girl as part of game of sexual conquest. The school has denied it could have prevented the assault, but it has since taken steps to 'prevent and reduce risky adolescent behavior.'

