I wrote about Mueller’s performance for Politico today:

In the end, the by-the-book Robert Mueller wildly departed from the book.

He invented an extraconstitutional legal standard for his obstruction investigation and acted, at the very least, in violation of the spirit of the special counsel regulations.

His departing act was a public statement meant to influence the public debate in a manner inappropriate for a prosecutor, in part because the public report he wrote that was inappropriate for a prosecutor failed to achieve clarity despite its hundreds of pages.

A hallmark of the Trump era is that the norm-defying president goads everyone appalled by him to violate norms. The retired Marine and former G-man would seem least likely to fall prey to this dynamic, but here we are: He has put on a master class in how a prosecutor shouldn’t behave.