The process and outcome of the Mueller report are not the interpretative mystery that swirling commentaries and reactions are projecting. The special counsel 's report and the attorney general's letter are really quite simple to understand. Each respectively executed their defined roles of statutory and delegated authority.

In Mr. Mueller's instance, he did so with remarkable humility, respecting institutional boundaries concerning the obstruction issue, while resolutely dispatching the collusion issue. As to the attorney general, he discharged his exclusive responsibility by doing what is done every day by every prosecutor, local and national. He evaluated the report and record Mr. Mueller presented to him, and with the deputy attorney general's review and concurrence, acted within his prescribed range of authority by declining pursuit of the criminal obstruction issue. Every prosecutor must exercise such discretionary judgment of when and whom to prosecute on the evidence, not on political or media-generated bellowing. The joint actions effectively and jurisdictionally conclude both those issues within their overarching purview and mandates.

Robert Mueller has been universally reputed from the run-up of his appointment to the completion of his duties as the consummate professional. He performed as such with disciplined schooling and belief in the renowned gold-standard prosecutorial principles of conduct, as prescribed almost eighty years ago by then-U S Attorney General, The Honorable Robert Jackson. On April 1, 1940. Jackson (of later fame a SCOTUS Justice and Nuremberg chief prosecutor) addressed the prosecutors of the nation under his charge in a magnificent call to duty – an instructional manual entitled The Federal Prosecutor. The concluding paragraph stated: “A sensitiveness to fair play and sportsmanship is perhaps the best protection against the abuse of power, and the citizen's safety lies in the prosecutor who tempers zeal with human kindness, who seeks truth and not victims who serves the law and not factional purposes, and who approaches his task with humility.”

Prosecutors are forbidden to seek their own limelight in pursuit of ideological or political agendas.

The heat-shield against that kind of self-aggrandizing misconduct is measured professionalism. That is the standard under which Mr. Mueller satisfied his duty.

Examine the proceeding from beginning to end:

Robert Mueller held no press conferences and generated no leaks over a 2-year period including the grand finale release of the report this past weekend – a professional and humble hand-up within the lawful institutional chain of command. Despite the knee-jerk demands that the public wants and needs to see the report and underlying record immediately, irrespective of lawful constraints and the true pulse of the nation as to what is needed or desired, there was no leak to a favored media “source” or “spinner” of the outcome.

Mr. Mueller, thus, comes off as an old-fashioned Robert Jackson prosecutor – operating with by-the-book cool professionalism, rather than someone seeking the heat of a political actor or media power-hungry policy muckraker.

So, what has transpired is simple to understand, measured against the gold standard of Robert Jackson's plain-spoken call to duty. So, does all this ruckus with second-guessing amount to anything serious or merit continued handwringing concerning the discharge of their duties?

Joseph W. Bellacosa was an associate justice on the Court of Appeals.