WASHINGTON — The president’s lawyer had no clue when the report might arrive, or if it even would.

Seated alone amid the tourists at the Trump International Hotel a few blocks from the White House on Friday, Rudolph W. Giuliani scrolled through a tablet with one hand and held a cellphone in the other as he waited for the news that the long-awaited report by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel investigating the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, was done and had finally been delivered to the Justice Department.

“Keep in touch,” he said to the person on the other end of the phone. “Tell me what’s going on, O.K.?”

Like the rest of Washington, Mr. Giuliani was tired of waiting.

“They said it was going to be at noon or 12:30,” Mr. Giuliani told a reporter who approached him around half-past 1 p.m. According to his sources — according to everyone’s sources — Mr. Mueller was late to deliver on a report that has enthralled the capital, bedeviled the president and, at times, enticed the nation.

As the hours ticked by, it seemed as if the report might never come. But at some point during the afternoon, unbeknown to the curious public and TV camera crews, a security officer from the special counsel’s office arrived at the Justice Department to deliver the report to Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general. Within minutes, it was in the hands of William P. Barr, the attorney general.