From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barrow. This is The Daily.

Today, the special counsel was supposed to make the decision about whether President

Trump committed a crime. Why did the attorney general do it instead?

It's Tuesday, March 26.

Mike Schmidt, it has been 48 hours since the attorney general, Bill Bar, sent his

summary of the special counsel's report to congressional leaders. Where are you at?

And you're thinking about all this.

In a certain way, I'm starting to think that the special counsel regulations, the way

that this investigation was set up has failed.

And what do you mean failed? Do you mean because this investigation didn't produce criminal

charges against the president?

No, no, no. It's not about that. It's about the perception of politics in criminal

decisions. Bob Mueller, the special counsel, operated under certain regulations that were

designed to protect him and his investigation, but also give the public assurances that

investigators who were free of politics pursued the facts.

In this case, there's a perception problem.

What do you mean by perception problem?

The special counsel is supposed to go out, look into the issues that are in question,

in this case, collusion and obstruction of justice.

And no matter how hard the questions they are looking at are, make a determination about

whether someone broke the law or not.

Because obviously, Mueller did not feel comfortable making a decision in either direction

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