The reports of an imminent end to the Mueller investigation seem more substantial than the rumors we’ve heard every day for a year and a half. It will be an experience to live without the mystery and anticipation surrounding it.

None of us know what Mueller will tell us. We don’t even know whether he will be allowed to tell us anything.

It is possible that Mueller’s report will document treason and obstruction of justice by the President of the United States and that it will be accompanied by one or several additional indictments that had been previously sealed.

It is also possible that Mueller will find no evidence linking Trump directly to either the Russians or obstruction of justice and that Roger Stone will turn out to be Mueller’s last indictment.

It was never smart to think that we could outsource our responsibility to fix our monstrous 2016 mistake to Mueller or to bet that he would provide the ironclad case for impeachment that we’ve dreamed about. It’s more likely that nightmare elections can only be cured by another election, and that Mueller’s findings will not be the end of Trump.

We have three things to be thankful for—the 2016 midterms, the arrival of Bill Barr, and Robert Mueller.

If the Democrats hadn’t won by a sizeable margin last year, the Republicans would have had a relatively easy time burying or lying about Mueller’s report in advance of the 2020 election. But things are different with Sheriff Pelosi in town. If Barr quashes or selectively edits the report, the Democrats can subpoena it and/or have Mueller testify about it public. If the report turns out to be too narrow, the Democrats can launch their own investigations. If the report lays out a strong case for impeachment, that process starts with Pelosi and Nadler..

If Matt Whitaker were still acting Attorney General, we would soon learn exactly what he meant when he told friends that his job description was to “jump on a hand grenade” for Donald Trump. We know from Whitaker’s recent performance on the Hill that he is dumb enough and partisan enough to attempt to completely quash Mueller’s report. Barr is definitely partisan, but he is not stupid enough to put himself in legal jeopardy, and with him in as Attorney General we at least have a chance of seeing most of Mueller’s report. Many Democrats in D.C. vouch for Barr’s integrity, he is not an enemy of the DOJ or the FBI, and he’s known Robert Mueller fir decades. Hopefully we will find that Trump has woefully misjudged Barr. It may be that Mueller waited to release his report until Barr was in place.

It’s hard to imagine a better person for the impossible role of special prosecutor than Robert Mueller, and he has certainly lived up to his reviews when it comes to running this investigation. Nearly two years without a leak from his team. That’s unreal. Just imagine the legions of aggressive, brilliant reporters who have trued to crack that cone of silence. Mueller is also a patriot who cares deeply about the rule of law, the FBI and the DOJ. If Mueller thinks that Trump is a traitor or has obstructed justice, Trump is in big trouble.

There is a contradiction built into Mueller’s investigation that will be key to how this all plays out.

Mueller is a prosecutor conducting a legal investigation and bringing indictments when justified. He is a Department of Justice employee and a known stickler for following the rules and precedents. He will likely follow the DOJ guidelines that hold that a sitting President cannot be indicted. Another standard DOJ practice is to not report on evidence gathered during an investigation that does not lead to a criminal indictment, which makes sense from a strictly legal perspective. If Mueller follows that standard, his report will not include evidence that could be damaging politically but doesn’t meet the threshold of indictment. Mueller and Barr will probably follow the legal requirement to not share information that comes from secret grand jury proceedings, that compromises national security, or that might compromise future prosecutions. Adhering to these standards would narrow Mueller’s report substantially.

But Mueller’s investigation is also political. If Trump can’t be indicted while President and Mueller’s report contains evidence that Trump broke the law, the audience for the report is not just the Attorney General but Congress and the American people. We don’t know if Mueller will name Trump as an unindicted co-conspirator, like Leon Jaworski did with Richard Nixon, or let him off completely. Mueller understands that there is a political dimension to his investgation. How he decides to handle it will impact the history of this country.

We may be disappointed by Mueller’s findings on a criminal conspiracy (remember that collusion is not a crime and that Mueller is a prosecutor) between Trump and the Russians to influence the 2016 elections, in the sense that the trail will not lead to Trump himself. Mueller did not break Paul Manafort, who is clearly risking the rest if his life in prison to angle for a pardon, and Manafort is the one who can tie Trump directly to an election conspiracy involving the Russians. Mueller will show that many of Trump’s people worked with the Russians, but he may not be able to prove that Trump had personal role in those dirty tricks

I’m more hopeful about the obstruction of justice case, given Mueller’s background and the fact that Trump has obstructed justice on many occasions right out in the open and has no doubt made other attempts behind the scenes that Mueller knows about. I cannot imagine how someone like Robert Mueller could not find that Trump has obstructed justice.

Obstruction of justice, specially by a President who technically runs most of the government, is all about proving intent. Why, then, didn’t Mueller subpoena Trump and force him to testify? Without that testimony, how does Mueller prove intent?

People tend to forget that Nixon would never have faced the prospect of impeachment had it not been for the tapes. Without them, it was Nixon’s word against John Dean’s, and we know who would have won that fight. Does Mueller have the luxury of not asking for Trump’s testimony to prove intent because he has tapes or phone taps of Trump?

In the end I think we will learn that this was all about a real estate developer and media star whose biggest dream was not to be President but to have his name on an apartment tower in Moscow that would net him $500 million. He starts pursuing this goal in the 1990s, around the time he begins borrowing millions from Russian banks. He runs for President in 2015 after his television show is cancelled, not to actually win—even he doesn’t believe that will happen—but to reenergize his brand. He continues to pursue the Trump Tower Moscow deal because he doesn’t think he will win. But he DOES win, and he continues to pursue the deal because that’s still what’s most important to him. He first step as President is to make sure that the Trump business cashes in on him being President. He makes it clear even before the inauguration that the entire U.S. government is for sale. He licks Putin’s boots because he needs Putin to get his stupid tower built in Moscow and because, like most weak bullies, he has a thing for real tyrants. The Russians get their patsy in the White House. The government gets sold off. Trump makes war on the press, the FBI, the CIA, and the DOJ because he fears that they have the goods on him, and forty percent of Americans support him in this. The Republican Party’s transformation into a white supremacist party is completed during the first year of Trump’s term. America, seemingly, hits rock bottom.

It could actually get worse. If Mueller makes a case for Trump conspiring with the Russians or obstructing justice, or both, the Democratic House will vote to approve articles of impeachment and Trump will be tried in the Senate. That could lead to a truly rock-bottom, we-can’t-sink-any-lower-as-a-country moment in which the Republicans in the Senate officially vote to acquit a treasonous and criminal President.