Rules governing Mueller’s appointment do not require him to talk to the American people. But there are mechanisms for him to do so should he want to.

There was, however, the cautionary spectacle of Comey’s news conference after he decided to make no indictments in the Clinton email probe, which drew the bureau into a damaging political imbroglio it has yet to escape.

In some ways, Mueller couldn’t win. But politics abhors a vacuum.

Aggressive interventions by Barr and the White House created an unstoppable narrative of exoneration that dulled the political impact of an investigation that — if it did not find prosecutable crimes — sketched a devastating picture of lies, apparent abuses of power and duplicity in the West Wing.

Mueller’s reclusiveness and deference to authority are what make his letter to Barr questioning the attorney general’s framing of the special counsel report so extraordinary.