“Mueller opens up the meeting with the following line, which was so seared into my memory that I will never forget it,” Silverglate told The Daily Beast. “He looks at us—Alan Dershowitz and me—and says, OK, gentlemen, I just want to say: Criticism of the bureau is a non-starter.’”

But criticizing the FBI was exactly what Dershowitz and Silverglate had come to do.

“Alan and I both walked away in a little bit of shellshock,” Silverglate continued, “understanding that there were things to Mueller that were more important than facts, more important than truth, more important than the erroneous conviction of an innocent American, and that is, the reputation of the FBI and his relationship with the FBI.”