What did Donald Trump do today?

He settled on a framing for the post-Mueller phase.

Today, Trump's recently appointed attorney general William Barr released a brief summary of the report he received from special counsel Robert Mueller. Trump's White House immediately declared that the report was a "total and complete exoneration" of Trump.

Trump himself echoed that phrase later in a tweet:

The exact words that Mueller used, as quoted by Barr, were that the report "does not exonerate" Trump.

Barr's letter did not hint how much (if any) of Mueller's actual report Trump will allow to be seen, or when. 

Barr was nominated by Trump to his post after he sent the DOJ an unsolicited memo attacking the entire idea of investigating Trump for obstruction of justice. As Barr's letter makes clear, he—and not Mueller—made the decision not to prosecute Trump or other Trump administration members for obstruction.

Why is this bad?

• It's wrong to lie.

• Innocent people don't generally lie about having been found innocent.