WASHINGTON — Television crews have been positioned outside the offices of the special counsel, the federal courthouse and, at least before they were asked to leave, the McLean, Va., home of the new attorney general, William P. Barr.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are so desperate for hints that they are asking aides to call Justice Department contacts to beg for morsels.

Publishing houses are scrambling to produce instant books of the findings. Newspapers are deploying small armies of reporters. At bars, restaurants, cocktail parties and street corners, people are asking one another the same question.

When is it coming out?

Washington — jittery, full of rumor, like a becalmed ship in the dead air before a coming storm — is waiting for the report of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, into Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether President Trump or his aides conspired in the effort or obstructed justice. It may or may not be the report of the century, it may or may not be ready soon, and it may be only a few pages long. But it is unquestionably one of the capital’s most anticipated documents since the Starr Report on President Bill Clinton arrived by the truckload on Capitol Hill in September 1998.