“One of the most prominent members of special counsel Robert Mueller’s team investigating Russia’s attack on the 2016 presidential election will soon leave the office and the Justice Department,” NPR reports.

“Andrew Weissmann, the architect of the case against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, will study and teach at New York University and work on a variety of public service projects, including his longstanding interest in preventing wrongful convictions by shoring up forensic science standards used in courts… The departure is the strongest sign yet that Mueller and his team have all but concluded their work.”

Renato Mariotti: “This is due in part to Trump’s successful disinformation crusade, which has worked to raise a nearly impossible and definitely illogical bar for Mueller to clear: proving ‘collusion’ and charging a grand criminal conspiracy involving the Trump campaign and the Russian government. But it is also due to Trump’s critics, who have responded to Trump’s ‘No collusion!’ mantra by shouting back, ‘Yes, collusion!'”

“The word collusion appears nowhere in the order authorizing Mueller’s investigation. There is not even a relevant crime called ‘collusion.’ What Mueller is tasked with is investigating ‘any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with’ the Trump campaign.”

“If ‘links and/or coordination’ also don’t sound like crimes, that’s because they aren’t. While Mueller is directed to charge and prosecute crimes he discovers, his is primarily a counterintelligence investigation — not a criminal one — the purpose of which is to identify threats to our national security, potentially including the President of the United States and his associates.”

Philip Bump: “President Trump has benefited enormously from the frog-in-hot-water nature of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into his campaign and possible overlap with Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election.”

“America has been waiting for Mueller to present a document that ties all of this together — eager, in part, for evidence proving the president’s guilt, or exonerating him, on charges that he and his campaign worked with the Russians. As people have awaited the outcome, the slow accretion of malfeasance that Mueller has already uncovered has faded into background noise. It has allowed Trump to lump every new revelation into a big snowball labeled ‘no collusion,’ parroting the same refrain as the snowball grows. Meanwhile his opponents, waiting for a smoking gun, are happy to keep looking forward as well.”

Neil Katyal: “The report is unlikely to be a dictionary-thick tome, which will disappoint some observers. But such brevity is not necessarily good news for the president. In fact, quite the opposite.”

“For months, the president’s lawyers have tried to discredit Mr. Mueller and this report, but their efforts may have backfired. A concise Mueller report might act as a ‘road map’ to investigation for the Democratic House of Representatives — and it might also lead to further criminal investigation by other prosecutors. A short Mueller report would mark the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end.”

“House Democrats plan to move quickly to protect special counsel Robert Mueller and ensure his findings are made public, in their first move since taking power to confront the White House over the Russia investigation,” Politico reports.

“Still undetermined, however, is whether Democrats would pass a combined package or one measure to prevent President Trump from firing Mueller and another to ensure the release of his final report.”