In Robert Mueller's first and only public remarks regarding the special counsel investigation into Russian interference with the 2016 election, Mueller reiterated that the office declined to come to a conclusion about whether President Trump committed any obstruction of justice offenses.

"If we had had the confidence that the president had not clearly committed a crime, we would have said so," Mueller announced. He once again pointed both to inconclusive evidence as well as his assertion that charging a sitting president with a crime was "prohibited" and "unconstitutional."

None of this is explicitly new information, but that Mueller found it necessary to use his lone eight minutes of public speaking time out of the past three years is telling. It also further counters the charge that Attorney General William Barr misrepresented the outcome of the special counsel investigation.

Outside of Mueller's specific request that Barr use the executive summaries and introductions from the report as the initial summary of the investigation to the public — a move that was practically improbable and functionally impossible, given Barr's duty to decide after Mueller punted the obstruction question — Mueller's statement today only further bolsters the accuracy of Barr's framing in his letter summarizing the principle conclusions of the Mueller report.

Just 48 hours after receiving the Mueller report, Barr wrote:



The Special Counsel states that "while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him." The Special Counsel's decision to describe the facts of his obstruction investigation without reaching any legal conclusions leaves it to the Attorney General to determine whether the conduct described in the report constitutes a crime.

...

applying the principles of federal prosecution that guide our charging decisions, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and I have concluded that the evidence developed during the Special Counsel's investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense. Our determination was made without regard to, and is not based on, the constitutional considerations that surround the indictment and criminal prosecution of a sitting president.



Compare this to the Executive Summary of Volume II of the Mueller report:



Under applicable Supreme Court precedent, the Constitution does not categorically and permanently immunize a President for obstructing justice through the use of his Article II powers. The separation-of-powers doctrine authorizes Congress to protect official proceedings, including those of courts and grand juries, from corrupt, obstructive acts regardless of their source.

...

Finally, we concluded that in the rare case in which a criminal investigation of the President's conduct is justified, inquiries to determine whether the President acted for a corrupt motive should not impermissibly chill his performance of his constitutionally assigned duties. The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President's corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law.



Even if Barr had subscribed to the exact same legal theories on obstruction and the criminal prosecution of a sitting president as Mueller does, his and Rosenstein's decision not to prosecute falls squarely in line with Mueller's. Perhaps Mueller wanted Barr to explain that Congress could still impeach Trump as a form of checks and balances on Trump, but why would Barr need to say so? He didn't exactly hide the ball that the evidence simply would not successfully clear the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard required to convict Trump or any of his associates.

[ Also read: Trump: 'Case is closed' on Mueller investigation]

Barr's job is not to encourage Congress to use impeachment proceedings as a criminal trial. High crimes and misdemeanors posit a political reading, not a strictly legal one. Mueller couldn't have his cake (refusing to charge the president with a crime) and eat it too (fairly setting the stage for Congress to impeach Trump).

Even if Mueller's read of the law is accurate, Congress would have to reasonably believe that Trump committed some sort of political crime to then begin proceedings. Investigators aren't supposed to look for exculpatory evidence and then impugn a suspect when there isn't any, even more so when it's a politically charged body aimlessly searching for an underlying crime.

Barr's letter may have been cursory, but it certainly wasn't dishonest, and Mueller proved that on Wednesday.