Going into the special counsel investigation, it was surreal how former director of the FBI, Bob Mueller, shed all baggage and became that mythical figure in Washington, the Honest Broker. Everyone agreed, Bob Mueller was to be trusted. Bob Mueller was the man who would tell America the truth. And so, we waited.

Two years later, the Report came out, and within days, the attorney general issued what the regulations required him to issue, a summary of the report’s conclusions. But Bill Barr’s summary lacked the trustworthiness of Bob Mueller’s report, because Barr was the president’s “hand-selected man,” as if any president ever nominated an attorney general who wasn’t “hand-selected.” Was the summary legit? If not, why didn’t Mueller say something?

Then came the redacted report, which raised a wealth of questions that sowed confusion as to whether the conduct of the president obstructed justice. There were ten points of conduct suggesting obstruction, yet no conclusion of obstruction. There was, explicitly, no exoneration, but no explicit condemnation either. What did it mean? Why didn’t Bob Mueller just say something?

As we learned the morning of Bill Barr’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mueller sent a letter to Barr shortly after the release of the summary, about a month before the testimony. Mueller did say something.

But on March 27, three days after Attorney General William Barr cleared President Trump of criminal wrongdoing in a misleading and incomplete summary of Mr. Mueller’s report on the Russia investigation, the special counsel felt compelled to protest. In a letter made public on Wednesday, just as Mr. Barr was preparing to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the American public got its first glimpse of how the special counsel thinks and speaks about his work.

It was hardly a “first glimpse” of Mueller, as America had more than enough “glimpses” during his tenure as FBI director, provided those who care deeply now bothered to pay attention then. But perhaps this means Mueller as special counsel, as if his entire career beforehand never existed.

Mr. Mueller’s tone and tenor are remarkable — and a sharp rebuke to Mr. Barr.

Sounds stern. Sounds harsh. Sounds clear. But “don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”*

“The summary letter the Department sent to Congress and released to the public late in the afternoon of March 24 did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this Office’s work and conclusions,” Mr. Mueller wrote in a letter addressed to Mr. Barr.

So the summary didn’t “fully capture” the report? What is that supposed to mean? By definition, it partially captured it, but what did it not capture? What did it get wrong? What did the summary say that it shouldn’t have said? What should it have said instead?

“There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation,” Mr. Mueller wrote. “This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations.”

There were few serious people who anticipated that Mueller’s report would satisfy a nation, either by finding the “smoking gun” of criminality or clearing Trump of the taint of any wrongdoing. But if there was confusion, as seemed almost inevitable given the fact-free bias so many bring to the table, it was Bob Mueller’s job to present a report that removed it, that expressed his findings in words to clear, so unmistakable, that no reasonable person could misapprehend his outcome.

Many read between the lines of the report with the certainty that they “get” what Mueller was trying to tell them, that this president committed conduct worthy of Articles of Impeachment. But it doesn’t say that. It says nothing of the sort, even though that’s certainly a reasonable “between the lines” reading.

Now comes the letter, a “sharp rebuke” as the New York Times calls it. Which clearly reflects something amiss with the Barr summary. But what? What did Barr get wrong that compelled Mueller to write? It doesn’t matter what you, I, or the editorial board of a newspaper that inadvertently keeps publishing anti-Semitic cartoons out of numbness, believe it said. It’s not our job to believe, our duty to parse the mystical inferences only found between the lines.

This isn’t to suggest that Barr bears no responsibility for putting his own twist on Mueller’s report, or that Trump’s twits are any less idiotic than ever. But if there is confusion, and clearly there is, then it was Bob Mueller’s job to make his findings clear, to report to the attorney general, the Congress, the American people, precisely what he concluded.

The report fell far short of this duty. Maybe he thought he could thread the needle and get away with hints and cryptic messages so as to avoid squarely facing the responsibility of his post, but he failed and Barr seized upon his failure to clear up the vagaries of the report.

But when Bob Mueller sent his March 27th letter to Bill Barr, he knew the gambit failed and that his effort to provide a report that he hoped would tell a story without spelling it out would suffice. Mueller left a huge gaping hole, and Barr filled it, but not quite the way Mueller wanted it to be filled. So he sent a letter telling him the summary was ugly, but failing, yet again, to tell us what it should have said, what would have made it . . . right.

There is plenty of blame to go around, and no shortage of targets of national ire. Somehow, the slings and arrows go nowhere near Bob Mueller, who could have cleared all this up if he just spelled out in clear and precise language what he was trying to say. His report failed to do so, and his letter to clarify some failing by the attorney general did no better. There is only one person who can say what Barr got wrong, and he chose not to do so.

*Anton Chekhov