"I’ve covered the Justice Department for three decades, and seldom have I seen a story like the one published in the New York Times this week..."

"... under the headline, 'Some on Mueller's Team Say Report Was More Damaging Than Barr Revealed.' What concerned me most is that the story’s anonymous allegations reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the role prosecutors play, including special counsels such as Robert Mueller. The job of prosecutors is not, as the Times headline suggested, to pen 'damaging' narratives about people they couldn’t indict. And it’s not their job to air those people’s dirty laundry, or that of suspects outside of a grand jury room or a courtroom....  The federal justice system created grand juries so that evidence that was embarrassing or damaging to defendants could be weighed behind closed doors but never released if it did not rise to the level of provable criminality. The Justice Department rules threaten any law enforcement officer or prosecutor with prosecution if they leak any proceeding that occurred before a grand jury. And the Justice Department rules governing grand juries unequivocally talk about the sanctity of protecting citizens who end up not being charged.... What’s most ironic about this Mueller probe leak is that it comes less than a year after former FBI Director James Comey was admonished publicly for holding a news conference to criticize Hillary Clinton for how she handled classified emails based on the results of an investigation that resulted in no criminal charges...."

From "Note to Team Mueller: If you don't indict, you can't incite" by John Solomon (at The Hill).