Even as the contents of the Comey letter remain largely unknown, there’s a flotilla of analyses speculating on what might be in it, what it means, and how to interpret the fact that Mueller is considering the letter. The tea-leaf readers had the benefit of already being warmed up from earlier attempts to interpret equally obscure developments.

“It’s the tip of the tip of the iceberg, with no idea what’s below,” said Bruce Green, a professor at Fordham University’s School of Law who worked on the Iran-Contra investigation. “It’s a great parlor game to sit and try to imagine what’s going on in the Mueller investigation or Schneiderman’s investigation, but there’s so little information to go on. We don’t know what evidence they found. That would be good!”

No item exemplifies the temptation to speculate better than a report that Mueller had teamed up with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman on his investigation. On Wednesday, NBC News pointed out that while Trump could try to use pardons to stymie a federal case against his aides or associates, that wouldn’t absolve them under state law. So when Politico reported hours later that Schneiderman and Mueller had teamed up, it immediately seeded speculation that Mueller was outflanking Trump on the pardon front.

“I think that’s ridiculous,” Green said, calling the pardon question largely one of academic interest at the moment. “We’re so far from the idea of a president pardoning everybody in sight, at a time when his office is denying that anything illegal happened.”

Maybe Schneiderman and Mueller really are playing the pardon angle. But it’s extremely common for two different authorities to work together on investigations where there’s a shared interest. The New York attorney general has been working on Trump-related issues for years, and he’ll approach any investigation from the standpoint of state law, while Mueller is focused on federal law. Was leaking the collaboration out now an intimidation tactic? Again, maybe—but it’s also plausible that the NBC News story simply spurred reporters to ask around about whether they were working together.

There are plenty of other examples of stories like this. What does it mean when The Daily Beast reports that Mueller is working with the IRS’s Criminal Investigations unit? Does it mean that Trump is under investigation for tax fraud? That Mueller is going after former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort? That he’s going after some Trump associate? Of course, there’s no way to know based on the information that’s available. But in a Trumpified media environment, every development demands instant explanation, or failing that speculation.

Many of the theories in circulation concern Manafort. What is to be made of the fact that Mueller ordered a pre-dawn raid on Manafort’s house, even though he was reportedly cooperating? What about Mueller’s subpoena for a former Manafort spokesman? Does Mueller believe Manafort was withholding documents? Is he trying to get Manafort to “flip” and become a witness against Trump? The tactics were repeatedly described as “aggressive.” Trump’s lawyer, Ty Cobb, slammed the raid as a “gross abuse of the judicial process.”