Mueller’s strategy: picking experts he trusts
The Russia probe is a criminal investigation historic in its implications and scale. Members of the special counsel’s team need to know how to best make use of the vast resources of the FBI and Justice Department to make their case. And they need to know how to do that quickly given the political importance and public interest.
That’s why, as Mueller set out to put a team together, he reached out to seasoned hands.
“Experience at the FBI, experience at the DOJ, experience working with members of the Congress — these are all critical to working quickly,” said Michael German, a fellow at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice and a former FBI special agent. “You don’t want anyone having to learn how those communication channels work while they’re on the job.”
This shouldn’t be too hard for members of team Mueller, all of whom have spent years embedded in these organizations, familiarizing themselves with how they work and whom to call when more information is needed.
Mueller also wanted a team he could trust, which is why four out of five of his hires have worked with him before. Hiring from his personal network not only let him recruit more quickly, it let the team hit the ground running.
“The [counsel members] understand each other’s shorthands. They know each other’s strengths and weaknesses so they can communicate more easily,” German explained. “Remember: The goal here is to get this investigation done as quickly and as thoroughly as possible.”
But why did they join the team in the first place? After all, most of them left high-paying jobs and put important federal duties on hold within weeks of Mueller’s appointment. Three former WilmerHale partners — Rhee, Quarles, and Zebley — as well as Mueller himself, likely took a large pay cut to join the team. A simple look at Glassdoor shows that a WilmerHale associate earns a base salary of around $175,179. A partner would have made ... quite a bit more.
To get a sense of the scale of the pay cut, a 2016 survey of more than 2,000 law firm partners showed that their average compensation was $877,000. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who technically sits above the special counsel, is paid at the government’s executive level 1 rate, which for 2017 was about $207,800 — less than a quarter of what law firm partners are said to earn.
The upshot is that Mueller’s team is full of people so committed to him, and the mission he’s been given, that they’re willing to put their careers on hold and take massive pay cuts to help lead the Trump investigation. And that has the real potential to be very, very bad news for both the White House and the president himself.
For deeper dives into the five members of Mueller’s team, see below.
Michael Dreeben: the criminal law expert
With decades of experience representing the federal government before the Supreme Court, former Deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben has been touted by CNN as Mueller’s most important hire.
Paul Rosenzweig, a former deputy in the Department of Homeland Security, wrote in Lawfare that the worst thing to happen to Trump last week wasn’t Comey’s testimony, but the announcement that Dreeben — “quite possibly the best criminal appellate lawyer in America” — had been recruited into the special counsel’s office.
Dreeben’s appointment has drawn praise from lawyers of both parties, including Preet Bharara, a former US attorney who alleges he had some uncomfortable phone calls with Trump before being fired in March.
Bharara’s praise is a reflection of Dreeben’s long career in the solicitor’s general office, where he has argued more than 100 cases before the Supreme Court. Many of them delved into the exact issues the special counsel will investigate.
“There have been cases in the past 20 years that have determined what obstruction of justice means, and he was involved in many of them,” Rosenzweig said in an interview. “He will have worked on issues of executive privilege. He will have worked on issues of grand jury investigations.”
Andrew Weissmann: the expert prosecutor
One of Mueller’s first appointments, Andrew Weismann, is another heavy hitter. He has taken a leave of absence from working as the head of the Justice Department’s criminal fraud unit to join the special counsel, and has been described by Politico as Mueller’s most significant hire.
That reflects the fact that Weissmann has a reputation as someone who has made a career out of taking on organized crime.
In the 1990s, Weissmann worked at the US attorney’s office in the Eastern District of New York, where he eventually rose to become the chief of the criminal division. He supervised more than 25 cases, going after the infamous Colombo and Gambino Mafia families in New York City and digging into organized crime on Wall Street.
From 2002 to 2005, he led the Enron task force that prosecuted more than 30 individuals and corporations involved in white-collar crime, after which he received several honors, including the Attorney General's Award for Exceptional Service in 2006.
Weissmann’s investigative skills will be a key resource for the Russia probe, said James Jacobs, a criminal law expert who worked with Weissmann while he was an adjunct professor at New York University.
“He’s very familiar in following the money and very familiar with technology,” Jacobs said in an interview.
James Quarles: the former Watergate prosecutor
A renowned litigator, James Quarles also happens to be a former assistant prosecutor in the Watergate investigation, where he specialized in campaign finance research, according to Wired.
The FBI has already requested financial documents from both Flynn and former campaign chair Paul Manafort. It makes sense that someone with experience in these matters was selected to join the team.
"There is nothing comparable to the kind of pressure and obligation that this kind of job puts on your shoulders," Richard Ben-Veniste, one of the leading special prosecutors for Watergate, told CNN. "Having been there before gives [Quarles] the confidence to know how to do it and how to do it right."
Aaron Zebley: the cybersecurity expert
Aaron Zebley has spent most of his career working in national security, but has more recently focused on cybersecurity.
When he was hired at WilmerHale in 2014, the firm’s co-managing partner, Robert Novick, said in a statement that the longtime FBI staffer would boost WilmerHale’s cybersecurity expertise.
Zebley worked as a special agent in the FBI’s counterterrorism division for seven years. He went on to become the FBI’s chief of staff and, later, a senior counselor in the National Security Division of the Justice Department.
Jeannie Rhee: the DOJ expert
Rhee, another career litigator, brings an insider’s view of the Justice Department.
From 2009 to 2011, she was the deputy assistant attorney general, charged with providing counsel to then-Attorney General Eric Holder and to the White House on issues surrounding criminal law, executive privilege, and national security, according to WilmerHale.
After joining the private law firm, she focused on advising clients involved in government-related litigation, which again, suggests that she has a strong sense of how the Justice Department works. This is important given that the special counsel will technically be part of the department — albeit with more independence — and will need to know how to navigate its many different departments and resources.