× Expand Robert De Niro as Al Capone in “The Untouchables” (1987).

“There is violence in Chicago, of course, but not by me and not by anybody I employ, and I’ll tell you why, because it’s not good business.” So said Al Capone, at least as depicted by Robert De Niro in the 1987 film The Untouchables.

Considering Capone is far and away the most famous mobster ever—and yet was never charged with any of the mob-related crimes he is suspected to have committed—his example offers some food for thought in the present moment.

On Wednesday, Special Counsel Robert Mueller made a rare public appearance with the apparent sole intent of blowing-up the “total exoneration” claim of another fast-talking New Yorker.

“If we had had confidence that the President clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so,” Mueller stated. He explained that his investigation didn’t charge the President with anything only because it is against U. S. Department of Justice guidelines to charge a sitting President with a crime.

Of course, those in Trumpworld stuck to the script. “When you don't charge someone, that’s considered an exoneration,” said President Donald Trump’s White House spokesperson Adam Kennedy, selectively ignoring that Mueller had taken charging off the table.

Trump himself tweeted, “There was insufficient evidence and therefore, in our Country, a person is innocent.”

Trump plucked the phrase “insufficient evidence” from Mueller’s statement that the investigation had reached the “conclusion that there was insufficient evidence to charge a broader conspiracy.” He ignored that Mueller also said “the investigation established multiple links between Trump campaign officials and individuals tied to the Russian government.”

To really understand the import of this, you have to go back to 2005.

Mueller was very clear on why he was left with insufficient evidence: On one side there was the obviously unhelpful Russian government, and on the other, the profoundly unhelpful President of the United States and nearly all of his top aides actively preventing the collection of evidence.

To really understand the import of this, you have to go back to 2005.

That’s when our previously most-famous Special Counsel—Pat Fitzgerald—was answering a question as to why Scooter Libby, then Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, was being charged with obstruction of justice but not with the underlying offense of disclosing to the media that Valerie Plame was a top secret CIA agent.

“What we have when someone charges obstruction of justice, the umpire gets sand thrown in his eyes,” was the baseball analogy Fitzgerald used. “He’s trying to figure what happened and somebody blocked their view.”

In the case of Libby, his “throwing sand in the ump’s eyes,” almost certainly prevented charges of the more serious crime of unauthorized leaking of classified information from landing in his or the Bush Administration’s lap.

Libby never spent a day in jail, because President George W. Bush commuted his thirty-six-month jail sentence was by shortly after he was sentenced.

Like Fitzgerald, Mueller was able to confirm that crimes did occur: Russia tinkered with our election, which in a photo finish could easily mean the difference between a President Trump and a President Clinton.

And, like Fitzgerald, Mueller was not able to establish a collusion case against Trump or his campaign in large part because Trump and his crew were actively seeking to obstruct the investigation at every turn. Mueller laid out ten different occasions on which Trump personally prevented his team from gathering the evidence they needed to determine the level of Trump’s involvement.

It's because of obstruction, throwing sand in the umpire’s eyes, that Mueller had to site “insufficient evidence” as the reason his team was unable to “establish” a case against Trump.

Humorously, one thing that Mueller left out is that in the midst of the investigation, Trump gave Libby a full pardon, telegraphing reassurance to all that those who obstruct justice in order to protect the boss.

It is because of this obstruction, this throwing sand in the umpire’s eyes, that Mueller had to site “insufficient evidence” as the reason his team was unable to “establish” a case against Trump. And still, Mueller pointedly said he was unable to exonerate the President of the United States from collusion with a hostile government to steal the election away from Hillary Clinton.

As we learned from Capone, just because the government is unable to charge you with being a mobster doesn’t mean you’re not a mobster.