Both CNN and The Washington Post are now reporting that Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, the great national psychodrama that has touched every corner of our politics and culture over the past two years, is coming to an end. Attorney General William Barr is expected to make an announcement as early as next week. Among supporters of the president, the news is a welcome sign that Donald Trump might finally be free of the “witch hunt” that has haunted his presidency. Mueller fans, meanwhile, are grappling with the chilling possibility that the special counsel might not have Trump dead to rights.

Under the special counsel regulations, Mueller is required to provide the attorney general with a confidential report explaining his prosecutorial decisions. But Barr is under no obligation to share the report with Congress or the public, and he made no commitment to do so during his confirmation hearings earlier this month (though as I previously reported, Democrats are prepared to go to war over the report’s release). While speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Trump said it was “totally up to Bill Barr” whether to release the Mueller report next week, when the president is scheduled to be overseas in Vietnam.

Legal experts, however, are skeptical that this is really the end of the “Russia investigation” as the American public knows it. “There are so many loose threads,” Neal Katyal, who served as acting solicitor general under President Barack Obama, told me. “Add to that the complexity of any investigation of this nature, it would be beyond superhuman for Mueller to have reached determinations on it all. So whatever the report says, it is highly likely the investigations will continue.” As former Illinois federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti explained, Mueller’s work has spawned multiple interrelated investigations, “some of which are being closed and some of which are ongoing and going to continue to be handled by other Justice Department entities.” New York prosecutors are handling investigations involving Michael Cohen, campaign-finance violations allegedly by the president, and potential financial crimes involving the Trump inaugural committee. CNN reports that the Washington, D.C., U.S. attorney’s office has stepped in to work on cases stemming from the Mueller probe. And there is ongoing litigation involving Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone, and his associate Jerome Corsi, among others. “I think what people will find is that the legal problems surrounding the Trump administration are not going to end,” Mariotti added. “This is merely the end of chapter one.”

The timing of CNN’s report prompted some speculation that Barr—who has been attorney general for less than a week—had pressured Mueller to close up shop. But it seems unlikely that Mueller is operating under duress. CNN noted that there has been a flurry of activity in the special counsel’s office in recent weeks. Moreover, sources who know Mueller, a Vietnam War hero, say folding under pressure isn’t part of his DNA. Perhaps most important, the statute under which Mueller was appointed requires Barr to inform Congress whether, at any point, the D.O.J. prevented him from pursuing any investigative steps or denied funding requests. “I don’t see any scenario under which Robert Mueller is issuing a report because he has been told he has to do so prematurely,” Mariotti said. “There are a number of loose ends that are out there. It is unclear how those are going to be wrapped up, but it may be that Mueller feels that those loose ends will not impact the ending of his investigation such that it would be worth delaying the issuance of his report.”