Updated 2:21 p.m. | “The case is closed!” President Donald Trump declared minutes after special counsel Robert S. Mueller III formally concluded his investigation — even though the former FBI director fired a shot directly across the president’s bow.

Mueller on Wednesday delivered his first spoken public words in two years, saying his investigation was never going to end with indicting the 45th president because such a move would be “unconstitutional” due to Justice Department guidelines that prohibit it. What’s more, Mueller repeated what his 448-page report did: That he and his team did not conclude that Trump committed no crimes — a potential signal to House Democrats that he favors impeachment proceedings.

“If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so,” Mueller said before announcing he will neither testify before Congress nor speak to the media. That report will be his final word about Russia’s 2016 election meddling and Trump’s actions related to it, he said before leaving a room at the DOJ in Washington without taking questions.

“We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime,” Mueller said. “Under long-standing department policy, a president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. That is unconstitutional.”