STEPHEN KOTKIN is Founding Co-Director of Princeton University’s Program in History
and the Practice of Diplomacy and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution.62 μ£¥³¤ ¬μμ¬
American Hustle
What Mueller Found—and Didn’t Find—
About Trump and Russia
Stephen Kotkin
R
obert Mueller III played lacrosse and majored in government
at Princeton. He graduated in 1966 and soon thereafter vol-
unteered for and was accepted into the Marine Corps. He
won a Bronze Star for heroism in the Vietnam War and later attended
law school at the University oÊ Virginia. He has since spent nearly a
hal century in either private legal practice or law enforcement, in-
cluding 12 years as director o the μ. Mueller epitomizes the old
́¬¡ establishment.
Donald Trump graduated from the Wharton School at the Univer-
sity o Pennsylvania in 1968. He dodged the Vietnam War, reportedly
by asking a podiatrist to dishonestly attest to the presence oÊ bone
spurs in Trump’s heels. Trump sought fame and fortune in the private
sector, entering his father’s successful real estate business, which he
took from New York City’s outer boroughs to the glitzier, riskier pre-
cincts o Manhattan and the casino capital o Atlantic City. He tried
his hand at running an airline and a get-rich-quick university before
Ãnally Ãnding his true calling: playing a fantasy version oÊ himsel on
a reality television show. Trump is as American as apple pie.
These two lives—establishmentarian and upstart—collided in May
2017, when the U.S. Department o Justice appointed Mueller as special
counsel to investigate, as the order deÃning his mandate put it, “any links
and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals
associated with the campaign o President Donald Trump,” along with
“any matters that arose or may arise from the investigation.” In the two
years that followed, Mueller and his investigators interviewed aroundReturn to Table of Contents