First, when the report was finished, Americans were not even able to read it for several weeks. Instead, they were treated to an immediate and total distortion of what it said by the attorney general, William Barr. In his four-page letter on the report, he wrote that it “identifies no actions that, in our judgment, constitute obstructive conduct.” He pushed that false narrative for weeks before letting the public see the actual report. Mr. Barr’s misleading letter also did not inform the nation of many of Mr. Mueller’s most critical lines.

In particular, Mr. Barr did not mention that Mr. Mueller said that he would have cleared the president of obstruction if the facts so showed. Nor did it mention that Mr. Mueller believed Justice Department policy prevented him from indicting a sitting president or even calling Mr. Trump’s conduct criminal. The president echoed Mr. Barr’s claims for months, saying things like “Robert Mueller and the 18 angry Trump-hating Democrats” arrived “at a conclusion of no collusion and no obstruction!”

Second, the Democrats in Congress have myopically viewed the report in political terms, asking whether their fortunes would be harmed by opening an impeachment proceeding. That is the wrong way to look at it. The right way is to look at it in law enforcement terms — a president who takes grave steps to undermine the rule of law in the very way the report describes is not fit for office.

There is no higher duty for Congress than to investigate and act when such a report lands on your desk. Those who say “oh, a Senate supermajority will never convict Trump” have it backward. That’s a feature, not a bug — our Constitution allows the House to investigate without the worry that its investigation will be twisted for political ends that would force the removal of an innocent president. The members of the House have a duty to act, even if the Senate won’t convict, because they are setting the standards for future presidents and because impeachment hearings will crystallize the nation’s attention on the actual events, as opposed to spin from the president and his attorney general.

And third, people don’t have the time or inclination to read a long report, at least not unless there’s something more lurid in it (the Starr report comes to mind). I’ve addressed many large audiences recently and asked for a show of hands on how many have read the Mueller report. The response is always under 1 percent — and it’s not surprising, given that the report is over 440 pages long and doesn’t reach a conclusion.