Donald Trump and his enablers are jumping around like a bucking bronco that has just thrown its rider. This is to be expected. Supporters of the president are calling for revenge against those who questioned the president’s patriotism. Also to be expected from that crowd.The Trump gang does not, of course, care a whit about propriety as long as they win. Whether they have won remains to be seen, however.

I say that for several reasons, not least of which is the stunning revelation that Mueller’s team met with the Attorney General three weeks ago and disclosed that Mueller would make no finding on the obstruction of justice issue. Small wonder, then, that Barr/Rosenstein were able to absorb the entire Mueller report and provide their own crucial conclusion on obstruction (i.e., no obstruction) that Mueller had, on the evidence, declined to make.

Speaking of wonder, one must wonder now what else transpired during that meeting. Did Mueller’s people provide the AG with some or all of the evidence accumulated during the investigation? Apparently they did, because it would otherwise be impossible for Barr/Rosenstein to arrive at the conclusion of “no obstruction” as quickly as they did after Mueller’s report was “officially delivered” on Friday. This would also explain how an as yet unnamed “high official” at DOJ knew immediately after the report was delivered that there were no further indictments forthcoming.

If this is true, why was it done? I had originally thought it most likely that the Mueller report itself was just a summary, making the Barr/Rosenstein letter to Congress a summary of a summary, in which case Barr/Rosenstein wouldn’t have cared what the evidence was. Likely they don’t care anyway, but it is difficult to understand why Mueller would have provided a briefing to Barr/Rosenstein three weeks before releasing the report. Are we to believe as well that Barr/Rosenstein did not communicate the revelation to Trump before the DOJ letter was sent to Congress? It’s possible but if it were communicated in advance, we would have a hint as to why Trump was so suddenly down with the idea of pubic disclosure of the report.

All this is somewhat speculative, of course, but Mueller did the country no favors with these maneuvers. New questions arise at every turn. I confess that I decided early on not to watch the media circus of speculation and instant analysis that the Barr/Rosenstein letter inevitably created.

The ultimate question here – what role did Trump and his associates (family as well as hired hands) play in the documented Russian attempts to influence the 2016 election – will only be settled if and when the evidence on which Mueller relied is laid out for the public to digest. How much credence did Mueller give to Trump’s own statements and conduct in light of his refusal to be interviewed? It seems that Mueller discounted Trump’s own statements (Holt interview) about why he fired James Comey. If so, why did Mueller discount that evidence on both the collusion issue and the obstruction issue? Very importantly, how did Mueller square the Trump Tower meeting and Trump’s role in lying about its purpose with the conclusion that there was no collusion?

Was the no-collusion finding based on a lack of hard evidence such that Mueller, applying a strict beyond-a-reasonable doubt standard as a jury would do, felt no crime could be charged? To what extent did Mueller use the standard of probable cause in evaluating the evidence against Trump on collusion?

I could go on with this but it is pointless unless and until the full Mueller report and the evidence on which it was based are disclosed. Given the revelation of an undisclosed meeting between Mueller and DOJ leadership weeks ago at which Mueller’s findings were disclosed, such disclosure is essential if this sordid chapter of American history is to be put to rest.