One year on, Robert Mueller is everywhere and nowhere

Robert Mueller. Photo / AP

Unlike the President, Robert Mueller hasn't uttered one word in public about his Russia investigation in the year since he was appointed special counsel. And that is rattling just about everyone involved.

What's he up to? When will he bring the probe to an end? He doesn't have to say, and he's not.

A year into the investigation, the stern-looking prosecutor is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. In that time, the breadth and stealth of investigations surrounding President Donald Trump have unsettled the White House and its chief occupant, and have spread to Capitol Hill, foreign governments and, as late as last week, corporate boardrooms.

With lawmakers eyeing mid-term elections and Trump publicly mulling whether he will sit for an interview with Mueller, Republican calls are growing for the special counsel to end his investigation. Vice-President Mike Pence and others have said it publicly. GOP lawmakers insist they've seen no evidence of collusion between Russians and Trump's 2016 election campaign. The longer the investigation runs, the more those calls are likely to amplify.

Mueller is investigating Russian interference in the election, whether Trump's campaign was involved and possible obstruction of justice. And by the standards of previous special counsel investigations, his actually has so far gone fairly quickly.

His office has charged 19 people and three Russian companies. The probe has also ensnared countless Washington insiders who have been called to testify or found themselves under scrutiny. Large corporations such as AT&T and Novartis have been contacted by Mueller and caught up in an offshoot investigation into Trump's longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen. The companies acknowledged last week that they paid Cohen for "insight" in the early days of the Trump Administration.

The secrecy of the investigation has created some anxiety about what is next. The President's lawyers have rushed to fill that vacuum, recently suggesting they've been told Mueller won't indict Trump and couldn't force the President to comply with an interview.

As in most major investigations, Mueller's office does not leak, and his spokesmen decline to comment on nearly every news story. Mueller is barely even photographed - forcing news outlets to run the same photos over and over again.

Trump has repeatedly called the probe a witch hunt. But Mueller and his team, often out of public view, continue to do their work.

- AP