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Bush Nominates Mueller to be FBI chief
U.S. President Bush on Thursday nominated Robert Mueller, 56, a federal prosecutor and decorated Marine officer, to be FBI's 10th director. He would succeed Louis Freeh, who retired last month after nearly eight years on the job.
Mueller, was not expected to face serious opposition at his Senate confirmation hearings. If confirmed, he would take over an agency that is the focus of several outside investigations into its handling of a string of major criminal cases.
Mueller is a "a man who exemplifies fidelity, bravery and integrity," Bush said in making the announcement at the White House Rose Garden.
Bush never made direct reference to the FBI's current troubles. But the bureau's botched investigation of Los Alamos nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee, the mistaken identification of a former Olympic park bombing suspect and failure to quickly identify the alleged spying activities of one of its own agents, Robert Hanssen, has left the agency reeling.
More recently, the bureau's mishandling of evidence in the Oklahoma City bombing investigation caused a month-long delay in the execution of Timothy McVeigh.
Attorney General John Ashcroft, who pushed hard for Mueller's nomination, said the San Francisco federal prosecutor "brings a wealth of experience to this job." Mueller served as acting deputy attorney general during the first few months of Ashcroft's tenure at the Justice Department.
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