Here, for non-visitors to Twitter, is a thread that I posted there yesterday afternoon—

1/ It makes sense that underling Mueller would make the prosecution declination decision for DOJ when he found insufficient evidence of crime (no Trump/other U.S. person conspiracy with Russia to affect the ’16 election). Declinations are what underling prosecutors do.

2/ It also makes sense that on the other question–Did the President endeavor to obstruct justice?–where the evidence & legal Qs were closer & complicated, Mueller sent it all upstairs to his bosses Barr & Rosenstein for them to decide.

3/ Responsibility to decide something as momentous as whether the President is a crook properly resides at the top level of federal prosecution responsibility for that matter.

4/ When an AG decides that the President is not a crook, then that AG (& his advisers in OLC, etc.) does not need to revisit the question of whether a crooked president constitutionally may be indicted.

5/ Yes, an AG works for the President. And when the AG decides not to prosecute the President, their relationship is something that can appear to be a conflict of interest.

6/ The U.S. Congress chose to accept this risk in 1999, when it permitted the Independent Counsel law to expire. That statute took such decisions away from AGs, reposing them instead in court-appointed prosecutors.

7/ In taking that risk, Congress was avoiding the risk that a court-appointed IC would turn out to be in fact a less-sound decision-maker than would an AG, whatever his or her possible conflicts of interest.

8/ These are political process, policy decisions about how best, under the Constitution, to structure federal prosecution responsibility.

9/ On this policy decision as on every other one, no answer will be perfect or satisfying to all for all time. We will keep learning, arguing, and tinkering. I hope that over time, we make progress objectively and satisfy more of us that we are doing so.