Robert Mueller's Quotes

People talk about the Patriot Act that was passed immediately in the wake of September 11. What the Patriot Act did was break down the walls between the various agencies.

Prior to the passage of the Patriot Act, it was very difficult - often impossible - for us to share information with the Central Intelligence Agency, with NSA, with the other intelligence agencies, and likewise, for them to share information with us.

Secondly, not only have we put additional agents on counterterrorism, but we've also built up our analytical structure so that we're better positioned to analyze the information we have.

So without getting into the specifics, I can tell you that to the extent that investigation is a relatively important investigation and meaningful, the president would have been periodically briefed.

The 19 hijackers that came over here to commit the attack on Sept. 11, there were those that were at the bottom of the line. There were those who were the principal conspirators. There were those who were the pilot. Everybody has a role.

They're - FBI agents are some of the finest people you'll find anyplace in the country or the world. And I'm lucky to have the opportunity to work with them.

We cannot go up on a wire. We cannot do a search without a judge on the FISA Court approving it and determining that we have met the standard that has been set forth by Congress in order to utilize these techniques.

We had to address information technology in the ways we had not before and give the agents the tools that they need to do their job more efficiently and more expeditiously.

What we bring to the table is not only our 56 field offices in the United States and our number of resident agencies, but also we have 45 legal attaches overseas.

There'll be differences of opinion in just about every intelligence analysis that you make.

But we had - I think if you look at law enforcement 10 years ago, if you look at the challenges, the FBI was focused excessively on what was happening in the United States.

I didn't know the organization, but the one thing you can say about the FBI, it's tremendously professional.

It's because we need to determine who in this country is poised, positioned to commit terrorist acts.

But since September 11, we have made every effort to try to work closely with state and local law enforcement.

I asked a Burmese why women, after centuries of following their men, now walk ahead. He said there were many unexploded land mines since the war.

I think around the world, our agents are the best collectors of information you'll find.

In planning an attack, persons have various roles.

Leaking of classified material is a concern.

So there is a foreign intelligence purpose for every one of our FISA warrants.

The collapse of Enron was devastating to tens of thousands of people and shook the public's confidence in corporate America.