Former FBI Director Robert Mueller has revealed he has Parkinson’s disease and will not comply with a congressional request to testify in the House’s investigation of Jeffrey Epstein. The announcement, reported by the New York Timesbefore they quietly rewrote their headline and pretended nothing happened, has already sparked accusations of conveniently timed illness in Washington.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by James Comer, had planned to grill Mueller about the FBI’s handling of Epstein during his tenure as director. In 2008, federal prosecutors famously cut Epstein a deal so sweet it made Willy Wonka look stingy, letting the financier serve just 13 months while still working out of his office six days a week.
Committee members insisted Mueller could shed light on what exactly the FBI was, or wasn’t, doing during that period. Instead, Mueller announced he was stepping aside, citing his Parkinson’s diagnosis, which the Times then dedicated several paragraphs to “selling” as an explanation, complete with anecdotes from Bill Barr’s memoir noting Mueller’s trembling hands. Barr recalled leaving a 2019 meeting and telling Rod Rosenstein: “Bob has lost a step.” Critics noted Barr later lost several steps himself, mostly toward the buffet table at Mar-a-Lago.
First Mueller’s out, now Clinton’s wandering around with a defibrillator. At this rate the Oversight Committee will need a hospice wing
John Jackson, private island real estate agent
Mueller’s absence is a blow to Comer’s star witness list, which still includes James Comey, Hillary and Bill Clinton, Eric Holder, Jeff Sessions, Merrick Garland, Alberto Gonzales, and Barr himself. One committee insider joked that by the time the subpoenas are handed out, “half of them will be on ventilators and the other half will be writing memoirs about how they don’t remember anything.”
Meanwhile, Epstein conspiracy theorists have declared Mueller’s diagnosis suspiciously convenient. One blog wrote: “He went from Special Counsel to Special Excuse in record time.” Others pointed out that, technically, nobody has ever testified in a high-profile Epstein probe without suddenly developing a mysterious condition or taking a long vacation.
