The Justice Department on Wednesday named former FBI Director Robert Mueller to serve as special counsel investigating Russia's alleged involvement in the 2016 presidential election, including any possible involvement of President Donald Trump's campaign in that effort.

Meeting the increasingly vocal demands of Democratic lawmakers, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein tapped Mueller to oversee the probe, despite recent White House statements that they viewed the appointment of a special counsel as unnecessary.


"Based upon the unique circumstances, the public interest requires me to place this investigation under the authority of a person who exercises a degree of independence from the normal chain of command," Rosenstein said in a statement. "A special counsel is necessary in order for the American people to have full confidence in the outcome. Our nation is grounded on the rule of law, and the Public must be assured that government officials administer the law fairly."

As special counsel, Mueller will have broad investigatory powers to look into how Russia may have influenced the 2016 election. The investigation, which could take months and will follow a separate track from congressional inquiries, likely will involve accessing classified documents and interviews, and Mueller can also convene grand juries and seek indictments if he deems it appropriate. He will have access to all the information the FBI and Justice Department have compiled so far.

Trump said in a statement after the announcement that he expected the probe would find no collusion between his campaign and foreign countries.

"As I have stated many times, a thorough investigation will confirm what we already know — there was no collusion between my campaign and any foreign entity," Trump said. "I look forward to this matter concluding quickly."

Rosenstein did not say what spurred the decision, but it came one day after press reports emerged that former FBI Director James Comey kept notes about his interactions with Trump on the Russia probe, including one reflecting a request from the president to abandon any investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who played a key role on Trump's campaign.

The revelations led to increased Democratic calls for a special prosecutor, and even some Republicans voiced support. Compounding the White House’s woes, news leaked that Trump provided two Russian officials with classified information during an Oval Office meeting last week.

The White House was not told of Rosenstein’s decision to name Mueller until after the order had been signed, the Justice Department said. Lawmakers were briefed on the appointment Wednesday afternoon, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Trump, who fired Comey last week, was in the middle of interviewing candidates to replace him as FBI director when he was informed, according to a person close to the White House. White House officials were blindsided by the move, an administration official said. A large group of staffers went to the Oval Office to inform Trump, according to a person in the room, who said Trump took the news better than expected and signed off on the statement his aides crafted.

Trump has called the Russia inquiry a “taxpayer-funded charade” and said accusations of collusion are “fake news” and a “hoax” pushed by Democrats as an excuse for losing the election. The White House has repeatedly insisted that there was no wrongdoing by Trump or the campaign.

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The Justice Department statement Wednesday shed little light on the ongoing probe, which Comey had confirmed existed during testimony to Congress in March. However, the order Rosenstein signed appointing Mueller made clear his authority includes scrutinizing actions taken by people affiliated with the Trump campaign.

The deputy attorney general, who was the one to name Mueller because Attorney General Jeff Sessions has recused himself from Russia issues, stressed that the move to appoint a special prosecutor did not mean anyone involved acted illegally.

"My decision is not a finding that crimes have been committed or that any prosecution is warranted," Rosenstein said in his statement.

Mueller agreed to resign from his private law firm, WilmerHale, to pursue the probe, the Justice Department said.

The appointment immediately received plaudits.

“I can’t think of a better selection,” said John Carlin, who led the Justice Department’s national security division as it pursued the Russia hacking investigation in its earliest stages before the November election.

Carlin, a former FBI chief of staff and senior counsel to Mueller, insisted his former boss would run a by-the-book operation.

“He’s the world’s most buttoned-down person that has conducted himself in each spot that he’s had,” Carlin said. "What he’s going to do is follow the facts and evidence where they lead. There will either be charges that can be brought or there won’t. There won’t be additional discussion.”

The move also met bipartisan approval — or at least acceptance — on Capitol Hill, where even Republicans who had resisted the call for a special prosecutor lauded Mueller.

“The deputy attorney general decided we ought to have a special counsel or whatever you want to call it,” said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), whose powerful panel oversees the Justice Department. “He’s got the power to do it, and you have to accept it, and it doesn’t matter what we think.”

“A special counsel is very much needed in this situation, and Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein has done the right thing,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement. “Former Director Mueller is exactly the right kind of individual for this job. I now have significantly greater confidence that the investigation will follow the facts wherever they lead.”

Rosenstein, who was already scheduled to brief senators Thursday, had come under fire from Democrats for drafting the memo that was initially said to be the precipitating factor for Comey’s firing, though Trump later said he would have fired Comey either way.

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While the appointment is a setback for Trump’s floundering policy agenda, it is less clear what it means for him personally.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer earlier Wednesday sidestepped a question about whether Trump was considering a personal lawyer to represent him on the investigation. “If I have any updates for that at some point, I’ll let you know,” he told reporters on Air Force One.

Asked whether he was representing Trump in a personal capacity on the Russia investigation, the president’s longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen replied in a phone interview, “I don’t know if he’s made a complete decision. There’s several mitigating factors.” Cohen declined further comment.

A representative from Morgan, Lewis & Bockius — the firm that has long worked for Trump on tax issues and also played a key role in his moves to untangle his business interests — declined immediate comment when asked whether it was representing the president in a personal capacity.

The appointment of Mueller marked the first time the Justice Department has gone outside its ranks to tap a special prosecutor since 1999, when Attorney General Janet Reno picked former Sen. John Danforth to investigate the showdown at the Branch Davidian complex in Waco, Texas.

Subsequent attorneys general have also named special prosecutors, but from within the department under other rules.

The best-known such appointment in recent years came in 2003 when Comey — then the deputy attorney general — named Patrick Fitzgerald, then U.S. attorney in Chicago, to oversee an investigation into the leak of the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame.

Fitzgerald never charged anyone with the leak, but he obtained an indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis Libby, for lying to investigators and obstructing justice in the probe. A jury convicted Libby, who was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. President George W. Bush commuted that sentence but declined to wipe out Libby’s conviction.

In previous decades, special prosecutors were usually appointed under a statute commonly referred to as the independent counsel law. That measure — formally part of the Ethics in Government Act — expired in 1999 amid considerable controversy over the spending and conduct of a slew of independent counsels during the 1980s and 1990s. They included Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr, whose investigation morphed repeatedly, eventually resulting in the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.

Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.