Historical precedent suggests that the report will be leaked, and the leakers will become heroes, if Trump tries to block it.

Robert Mueller testifying to Congress in 2013. Source: C-Span

A recent story by Buzzfeed News has shed light on the nature and progress of the Special Counsel investigation into the Donald Trump campaign. The report, which Buzzfeed stands by despite questions of its veracity, alleges that Trump ordered his personal attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about the timeline of a Trump Tower Moscow deal. If the report is true, Trump has committed an act of suborning perjury, a serious crime that would certainly provide grounds for impeachment.

This news has provoked fears that the Mueller Report may not see the light of day. No law requires the Justice Department or the Special Counsel to make any sort of report public. William Barr, Trump’s new pick for Attorney General, did not commit to sharing the full, unredacted contents with the public or even with Congress. Observers have noted the power of presidents to keep information confidential in nearly every circumstance. The fear of the report never being released, and never having any effect on the Trump administration, remains palpable.

Such fears are understandable given Trump’s mercurial nature and the unprecedented nature of today’s political climate. Trump has failed to acknowledge or understand that his power as president does not extend to the ability to interfere with the Justice Department. Furthermore, pundits have argued that Trump’s power over the Republican Party is absolute and that nothing, not even blocking a critical Mueller report, would cause the party to turn on him. Republican Senator Roy Blunt echoed this point last week. In comments to POLITICO, he praised the Special Counsel but remarked that “There may be some things so classified they could not be released.”

But the Mueller report is not only in the hands of Trump and his cronies. It is also an object that was created by a group of FBI lawyers and officials led by Mueller. And, if history is any guide, there is no guarantee that laws and norms will prevent such a potentially critical report from reaching the eyes of the public.

The Mueller report may seem unparalleled in its potential significance. But other such documents have been crafted in the upper echelons of the American government. One of these was written by the Pentagon in 1967 during the height of the Vietnam War. The report detailed every episode of American influence in Vietnam from the end of the Second World War onward — numerous, previously secret instances in which presidents had lied to the American people about the Vietnamese and the nature of the war.

This document, today known as the Pentagon Papers, was an explosive expose that upended Americans’ opinions of their government and of the military during an intense time of war. It was drafted at a time of flagging but still-high levels of trust in the American government, and during the presidency of an accomplished leader who had an approval rating over 50%. And it still leaked.

Over forty years later, a similar leak occurred. The revelations of Edward Snowden also included classified government secrets. They were released during a popular presidency and detailed surveillance techniques that, while controversial, were nowhere near as explosive as a potentially disloyal administration. Snowden was still able to both leak those details and become somewhat of a national hero for doing so. He was praised by Senator Bernie Sanders as someone whose deeds deserved a pardon or favorable plea agreement. In 2016, Sanders wrote of Snowden, “The information disclosed by Edward Snowden has allowed Congress and the American people to understand the degree to which the NSA has abused its authority and violated our constitutional rights.”

The situation of the Mueller report is significantly more tenuous than the circumstances leading up to earlier leaks. The Pentagon Papers were released at a time where the war in Vietnam was winding down and losing support. Edward Snowden’s revelations of metadata tracking programs reached the public years after the excesses of the PATRIOT Act had been confronted and slightly pared back. The Mueller report will be finished at a time when the vast majority of the country wants answers about the relationship between Donald Trump and Russia. Americans want to know if their president is a spy, and the Mueller report is the only document that will be able to definitively tell them. Daniel Ellsberg, the leaker of the Pentagon Papers, and Edward Snowden both became heroes after their leaks in more normal times. If necessary, at least one of Mueller’s prosecutors will follow their leads.