Recently uncovered court documents related to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s time as FBI Director show his lack of anything resembling credibility. The man who is responsible for investigating allegations of Trump/Russia collusion was involved in releasing deceptive statements that helped cover up a Saudi family’s involvement in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that shocked America and helped launch the modern surveillance state.

Mueller led the FBI from September 4, 2001 to September 4, 2013. One week after Mueller assumed his new job, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four airliners, using three of them to destroy the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York and severely damage the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Nearly 3,000 people lost their lives that day and more than another 6,000 were injured, many of them later dying from their injuries.

Fifteen of the 9/11 terrorists were citizens of Saudi Arabia.

Over the years, evidence of Saudi involvement has continued to come to light. In September 2011 — 10 years after the attacks — Florida Bulldog, a non-profit watchdog news group based in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, published an excellent piece of investigative journalism revealing the existence of the secret FBI investigation of a Saudi family living in Sarasota, Florida, with apparent ties to the 9/11 attackers.

Mueller — who was still at the helm of the FBI at the time the article was published — was involved in the “public release of deceptive official statements about” that secret investigation, according to a recent article from the Bulldog. As the recent article says:

The misleading statements, issued by FBI officials in Miami and Tampa, were made within days of a September 2011 Florida Bulldog story disclosing the existence of the investigation and reporting that Congress had been kept in the dark about it.

The statements sought to discredit the story, asserting that agents had found no connection between the Sarasota Saudi family and the 9/11 plot. In fact, the FBI’s own files contained at least three reports that said the opposite: that agents found “many connections” between the family and “individuals associated with the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001.” The FBI released those reports later amid continuing Freedom of Information (FOI) litigation brought by Florida Bulldog.

The New American reached out to the Bulldog and spoke with Dan Christensen, the founder of the organization and writer of the article. Christensen is no newcomer to investigative journalism. After an award-winning career as an investigative reporter with the Miami Herald, he started the Bulldog in 2009 as a “nonprofit, independent and nonpartisan news organization that seeks to provide authoritative reporting in the public interest while upholding high standards of fairness and accuracy.”

When asked to what degree Mueller was responsible for the “deceptive statements” that “sought to discredit the story,” Christensen said, “We do not know for sure or completely that Mr. Mueller ordered the release of these deceptive statements.” Christensen added, “What we do know is that he was the FBI director at the time, we do know that this was called to his attention — that’s something we’ve just recently learned.” Not only was Mueller aware of the memo released by FBI agents, there is also a matter of “the timing,” Christensen said. “We do know that the timing of the memo of which he was apprised about that contained further inaccuracies was the same time — the same day — that at least one of these misleading statements was put out by the FBI in Tampa,” he told The New American.

As part of its efforts toward investigative journalism, the Bulldog engages in litigation — particularly filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and court documents. The Bulldog website lists the documents referenced in its investigative reporting, and those documents are very revealing. For instance, the FBI — under the direction of Mueller — released a statement claiming, “At no time did the FBI develop evidence that connected the family members to any of the 9/11 hijackers as suggested in the article, and there was no connection found to the 9/11 plot.” However, the Bulldog website lists documents showing that this FBI statement is false.

As the Bulldog reported:

The same day the white paper was prepared for Director Mueller, Sept. 15, 2011, FBI Tampa Public Affairs Officer David Couvertier sent a similarly worded email to the Tampa Bay Times on behalf of Special Agent in Charge Steven E. Ibison: “At no time did the FBI develop evidence that connected the family members to any of the 9/11 hijackers as suggested in the article, and there was no connection found to the 9/11 plot.”

Florida Bulldog’s Miami attorney, Thomas Julin, filed court papers last week asserting a “red flag” has been raised in the case by disclosure of the FBI director’s involvement.

“That Mueller received a briefing about the Sarasota investigation suggests that the issues the Bulldog raised required the attention of the FBI’s highest authority,” Julin wrote.

The circumstances further suggest that Director Mueller approved the deception in which the FBI engaged.

Mueller did not respond to questions emailed to his office on Tuesday.

The two-page white paper, not attributed to any individual, is likewise interesting for what it did not tell Mueller. For example, it made no mention of the 2002 FBI reports stating that “many connections” were found between the al-Hijjis and the 9/11 hijackers. Nor did it discuss whether the FBI withheld the results of its Sarasota investigation from Congress, as former Florida Sen. Bob Graham, co-chair of Congress’ Joint Inquiry into 9/11, has said under oath.

So, Mueller — who is now the special counsel leading the probe into allegations of Trump/Russia collusion — was aware (as FBI Director) that the FBI made false statements denying that agents had found “many connections” between the Saudi family living in Sarasota and the 9/11 plot.

This information frankly does more than call Mueller's credibility into question; it leaves it in tatters. In more than eight months of digging, the Mueller probe has produced nothing — innuendo and insinuation notwithstanding — to show that President Trump or anyone in his campaign colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election. And yet the former FBI director turned special counsel has continued (and is continuing) to lead what increasingly looks a witch-hunt, even as evidence of his own wrongdoing in the cover-up of Saudi connections to 9/11 come to light.

Photo of Robert Mueller: White House