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It's wrong to claim that the end of the Mueller probe with no more indictments is a "win" for Trump. First, if Trump "won" it implies that Mueller "lost." But white collar prosecutors don't "lose" if they investigate and conclude charges are not justified. 1/
Unlike in a violent crime or other case where it's clear a crime has been committed and the question is who did it, in white collar it's usually clear who did it and the prosecutor's job is to determine whether it was a provable crime at all. Sometimes the answer is "no." 2/
That doesn't mean the prosecutor has "lost," he/she has done the job exactly as required. If "winning" meant getting an indictment, that's easy to do for a prosecutor with bad motives. Trump is lucky this investigation was done by a pro and not by a political hack. 3/
The other problem with the "Trump won" narrative is the binary view that everything is either criminal or OK. There are lots of things that are deplorable and unacceptable but not criminal. The Mueller report may reveal many such things about Trump and his campaign. 4/
That may have dramatic political consequences for the president, even if it doesn't have criminal ones. That hardly means that any such misconduct was OK. 5/
At most, Trump can say he was vindicated, at least when it comes to allegations of criminal misconduct. But having widespread, non-criminal misconduct exposed -- assuming that's what the Mueller report does -- is hardly a "win" for the president. 6/
An inscription on the wall at DOJ says: "The United States wins its case whenever justice is done one of its citizens in the courts." By that standard, I think we can be confident that Mueller, and the American people, "won" yesterday. 7/end
