Mueller’s Collusion Case Fell When No Law Fit the Facts

President Donald Trump, for all of his attacks on journalists and threats to weaken laws protecting news gathering, may owe a debt of gratitude to the First Amendment.

U.S. law protects publishers who disseminate truthful information, even if someone else obtains it illegally. That helped the Trump associates who communicated with WikiLeaks and others about the dissemination of emails stolen by Russians. Those contacts don’t constitute a crime, according to Mueller and Attorney General William Barr.

Such people could have been charged, the attorney general said, only if they had helped the Russian hackers steal tens of thousands of emails ...