The man did the harm to himself it appears. Tis better to say we are in the process of investigating our records, files, & procedures, to see if we overlooked anything, than to continue peddling a backwards bicycle and retracting your words which bring the integrity of your office and the FBI into question. Mueller knew better than this he was career FBI. Even the word "No Comment" would not have been as damaging.
For the record Freeh was more at fault along with several other directors past in the FBI's gross mismanagement. The Bush SR / Reno FBI needs a big shake up and some lessons on just what their job actually is. It's not to go and arrest a two bit cult leader with a full scale tactical invasion when a county deputy could have done it safely likely without inicident at another location and saved innocent lives. I want to see change in the FBI and this is not a good start.
As I recall, that was actually ATF.
Just a bit of history. The "scapegoat" is the Church Commission of the 70's. That is when the FBI and the CIA were relegated to little more than beat cops. What Mueller has done is put the prime mission of Hoover’s FBI back into play. He has shifted the focus from investigating crimes after they have been committed back to preventing crimes in the planning stages.