Most importantly, however, it allows some breathing room between scandals. Now, the White House can say they cannot discuss the matter because of the Mueller investigation. Likewise, they can claim that any leaks must be false because Mueller would never leak. They can dismiss a large part of the story out of hand.

All that makes the appointment of Robert Mueller a no brainer, but there is something more important going on as well. The odds are that the Department of Justice would not launch this sort of investigation if they did not already have an inkling of there being no real issues with the president. If they were really concerned about the president, they would keep this in house where they could exercise greater damage control.

Democrats have been railing on about the president, convinced he worked in collaboration with the Russians to steal the election. There is no evidence of this, but Democrats cannot acknowledge what a terrible candidate Hillary Clinton really was. So they bitterly cling to Russia, which is the Democrats’ version of birtherism.

Most likely, there will be no evidence that Donald Trump plotted with the Russians to steal the election. After two years of Democrats claiming otherwise, this will be another cry wolf moment.