robert mueller sexual assault

Robert Mueller Is Done With His Investigation! So What Happens Now?

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IT FINALLY HAPPENED.

Just about 22 months after Robert Mueller was appointed as special counsel into the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, he has reportedly presented his findings to the Attorney General, William Barr.

We’ve been waiting for this for so long, and the news is no doubt exciting. In just a matter of hours, we went from this beautiful thread:

–to this:

But the news is also anticlimactic. Because Mueller’s completion of his report does not mean we immediately–or even, possibly, ever–get to see that report. That’s up to Barr. He gets to decide what to report to Congress, and whether it’s in the public interest for the rest of us to see some or all of it.

For many of us, Kenneth Starr’s investigation into Bill Clinton is our reference point for this sort of thing. That 453-page report was released in full and anyone old enough to remember that event (or who has listened to a podcast about it) might have an image of us all getting to tear into Mueller’s findings and peruse them at our leisure. That’s not necessarily the case, and it’s hard to know even how likely that will be. Watergate, for example, only resulted in Congress receiving a “road map” into the investigation at the time. (Nixon resigned before a report was released, and it wasn’t made public until last year.)

We don’t yet know what we or Congress will see, but we do know that Barr was appointed by Trump, who is known to value “loyalty” when vetting his nominees.

So Mueller may be done, but we still have a ways to go. No matter what is released, it’s then up to Congress to decide if any offenses are impeachable, and if they want to act on that.

For the rest of us, we may be eager for Mueller’s details, but’s not like they’re going to paint a different picture of Trump than we already have.

In the meantime, have a great weekend and enjoy those “It’s Mueller Time” jokes flooding your timelines!

(image: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

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Author
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Vivian Kane
Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.
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