A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America

by Philip Rucker

If Mueller believed Congress ought to pursue impeachment, he did almost nothing to help achieve that outcome. By refusing to answer questions about his findings until his July 24 House testimony, by offering up a 448-page report and expecting the public or even members of Congress would have the attention span to absorb its lawyerly analysis, Mueller fumbled the moment. He was too pure and too invested in the norms of an institution of yore, the Justice Department, whose core values and the public servants who upheld them had been under assault for two straight years. “His silence, his telling people to just read the report, has allowed a guy like Trump and a disappointing guy like Barr to come in, and Barr knows Mueller and he knows that Mueller won’t fight back,” said Frank Figliuzzi, the former Mueller FBI colleague. The special counsel, he concluded, “ended up getting played. But I don’t mean that he should’ve done something different because it might turn out that history will look at Mueller and say the guy brought faith and credibility back to institutions and Barr and Trump could be dismissed by history. We don’t know where this is going. But in the moment, it looks like he was suckered and he lost the fight.”