Noah Feldman, Columnist

Call It Obstruction, Robert Mueller. The Evidence Is Here.

We’ll probably never know why the special counsel stepped back from making that conclusion.

April 19, 2019 at 11:00 AM UTC

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

Things are looking up.
Photographer: Joshua Roberts/Bloomberg

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Why did Robert Mueller pull his punches? In his report, made public Thursday by the Department of Justice, Mueller laid out significant evidence to support the conclusion that President Donald Trump committed obstruction of justice. Yet the special counsel stated that no matter what evidence he found, he wouldn’t directly say that Trump had committed a crime.

That decision, which was not required by law or by the regulation guiding the special counsel’s office, opened the door for Attorney General William Barr to say that he had determined there wasn’t enough evidence to charge Trump.