The Russia investigation is over. The story about Donald Trump’s relationship with Russia during the 2016 election is, in some ways, just beginning.

Over the last two years, special counsel Robert Mueller laid out in countless court filings and 37 indictments how Russian operatives reached out to the Trump campaign in their quest to sabotage Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and bolster Trump’s odds of becoming president. But on Sunday, Attorney General Bill Barr summarized for Congress Mueller’s conclusion: There’s no clear evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, or that Trump committed obstruction of justice to hide it.

For the president, this judgment was a vindication. “No Collusion, No Obstruction, Complete and Total EXONERATION!” he wrote on Twitter on Sunday. This is a stretch. Mueller explicitly refused to clear Trump on obstruction of justice, and although this investigation is over, other federal probes into Trump’s political and financial dealings remain active. But it’s true that clearest threat of impeachment for the president has now evaporated.

And yet, the Russia investigation was purely a legal process: The question for Mueller was whether there was proof, beyond a reasonable doubt, of collusion or obstruction. But the future will act as a different sort of jury. Generations of Americans to come will be able to draw upon more evidence in the court of history than Mueller could in a court of law, and what we know so far is damning for the president and his sympathizers.

Start with the biggest question of all: Did the president and his campaign collude with Russia to sabotage Clinton’s candidacy? According to Barr, Mueller “did not find that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in these efforts.” Trump and his supporters already are claiming this means he did not collude with Russia, but there’s a key difference. As a prosecutor, Mueller had to determine not only whether anyone’s actions amounted to a crime, but whether all elements of that crime could be proven to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. That’s a formidable threshold to clear in this case without a smoking gun like the Nixon White House tapes.