Byron York: When did Mueller know there was no collusion?

rump-Russia special counsel Robert Mueller was appointed May 17, 2017. Twenty-two months later, on March 22, 2019, Mueller sent his report to the Justice Department.

Some special counsel investigations have taken longer; it is the nature of such probes to drag on and on. But why did Mueller need nearly two years to determine whether the Trump campaign and Russia conspired or coordinated to fix the 2016 election?

He didn't, it appears. In the wake of the release of Mueller's report, there are indications that special counsel prosecutors mostly knew by the end of 2017, and certainly by a few months later, that the evidence would not establish that conspiracy or coordination — or collusion, to use the popular term — had taken place. Mueller clearly spent a lot of time on the other half of his report — trying to establish that Trump obstructed justice — but on the most explosive and consequential allegation of the Trump-Russia affair, the conspiracy allegation, the Mueller investigation was essentially over long before it officially ended.

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