When special counsel Robert Mueller concludes his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, it will be up to Attorney General William Barr to determine how much of the report to disclose to Congress and the public. He should release the full report.

Though CNN is reporting that as soon as next week Barr is going to announce that Mueller has concluded his report, we should take all such claims with a grain of salt, as predictions of the investigation’s end have proven premature many previous times.

That having been said, regardless of the actual timing, the rules governing the release will be the same.

Mueller will send a confidential report to the attorney general, who will then be required to send a summary to Congress. Such reports are described by the governing law as “brief notifications, with an outline of the actions and the reasons for them.”

But Barr could go further and release the full Mueller report, along with all of the transcripts of testimony and evidence supporting the various findings.

The reticence to release a full report in cases such as this come from an understandable place. Generally speaking, prosecutors should focus on providing evidence that backs up specific legal charges in court, whereas a full report may contain embarrassing information that is legal or references to potentially illegal behavior that could not be proven.

While this is an understandable concern, the reality is that if the full report and supporting materials are not released, we’re going to get portions of it leaked in dribs and drabs by anonymous sources with an agenda to push.

This has been the problem plaguing Russia reporting all along. The media has no direct knowledge about what is going on, so they’re relying on leaked information, even though some people have an interest in taking down Trump while others are interested in vindicating him.

Once the report hits, we’ll get anonymously sourced stories suggesting that Trump committed impeachable offenses and others claiming the report offers full vindication.

If the actual report is released, people who choose to read all the materials can judge for themselves whether the gathered evidence supports a given conclusion. And even if the average news consumer won’t actually be digging through potentially thousands of pages of Mueller’s documents, the fact that they are publicly available will act as a check on the proliferation of fake news through anonymous reports.

The demon of Trump collusion with Russia has cast a shadow over the administration since Day One. For over 2 years, the American people have been subjected to news stories suggesting that their president worked with a foreign adversary to win the election. If true, it carries with it the potential of removing from office a democratically elected president. If false, a lot of elected officials and members of the media have a lot of explaining to do.

Regardless of where anybody falls down on the Russia story or Trump in general, all sides should have an interest in full transparency in this case.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that it’s unconstitutional for states to steal people’s cars. That’s a great step forward in cracking down on civil asset forfeiture and the practice of states and cities seizing personal property as a means to raise money.

The decision is a victory for Tyson Timbs, an Indiana man who had been fighting the state to get his $42,000 Land Rover SUV back after it was seized during his arrest. He had purchased the vehicle with the proceeds from an insurance policy he received after his father’s death.

Nonetheless, the state thought that his guilty plea to selling a few hundred dollars in heroin to undercover police officers entitled them to the vehicle on the grounds that he had used it to transport drugs. As the Supreme Court explained, however, the forfeiture of the vehicle amounted to “more than four times the maximum $10,000 monetary fine assessable against Timbs for his drug conviction.”

That, by any measure, is excessive. So much so that it amounts to flat-out theft.

Indeed, no court disputed that seizing the vehicle amounted to an excessive fine. Instead, the Indiana Supreme Court justified the state’s seizure of the vehicle on the grounds that Eighth Amendment protections against excessive fines did not apply to states.

The U.S. Supreme Court disagreed, ruling that Eighth Amendment protections, including the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, excessive bail, protections against excessive fines, and other government abuses, are all “fundamental to our scheme of ordered liberty” and that states are bound to follow them under the Fourteenth Amendment.

There was, however, a slight disagreement over which part of the amendment is binding to states. The majority opinion, authored by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, relied on the Due Process Clause. Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch agreed, but explained in concordances that they would have relied on the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment rather than Due Process.

All agreed, however, that protections against seizures of property that amounted to excessive fines had a long history. The court traced that history all the way back to the Magna Carta and, in the U.S., to the Virginia Declaration of Rights. The Eighth Amendment in the Bill of Rights is the modern incarnation of these centuries-old rights.

After all, it’s impossible for any system that purports to protect rights and uphold justice to allow an arrest or conviction to become a license for the government to simply take whatever it wants from an individual.

That makes the ruling an important victory for criminal justice reform. It will hopefully prevent states and cities from abusing their authority to take property beyond what a court has ordered, thereby protecting the rights of individuals around the country.

Democratic congressional leaders claim President Trump’s decision to declare a national emergency to spend additional money on a border wall is unlawful, with some even saying this maneuver looks more like a dictatorship than a democracy. On this matter, the Democrats are wrong. It was Congress that gave the president this power.

The Military Construction Codification Act of 1982 provides that the president can reallocate funds for military construction projects when he declares a national emergency “that requires use of the armed forces.”

One could argue a border wall isn’t a real emergency and that judges should stop the president. The problem is that judges historically have tried to not second-guess the president’s national security judgment for declaring a national emergency. Congress holds the real power here. If lawmakers believe a border wall is a “fake” emergency, they can vote to undo the decision. The National Emergencies Act of 1976 says that Congress can pass a joint resolution of termination to end such an emergency declaration.

A stronger argument against Trump’s declaration is that it does not require use of the armed forces. The president is likely to argue that he must use armed forces or else the problems he seeks to resolve with his declaration will continue, and so the use of military personnel is required. This question is likely to be a close call legally, and it’s hard to predict how judges will respond.

Other critics claim the Military Construction Codification Act violates the Constitution’s nondelegation doctrine, which prohibits Congress from delegating away its legislative power to the president. I strongly support the nondelegation doctrine, see my amicus brief in the pending Supreme Court case Gundy v. United States, but the statute invoked by the president does not violate that doctrine because the nondelegation doctrine only applies to rules of private conduct. As Justice Clarence Thomas, the strongest supporter of the nondelegation doctrine on the court, recognized in DOT v. Association of American Railroads (2014), “The core of the legislative power that the Framers sought to protect from consolidation with the executive is the power to make ‘law’ in the Blackstonian sense of generally applicable rules of private conduct.”

Discretion given to the president over how the executive branch is run, or how appropriated money is spent, is merely allowing the head of the executive to exercise his default control over his subordinates. The very first appropriations bill put almost no limits on how the money would be spent outside of the department it was assigned to, and likewise this authorization by Congress is constitutional.

Another concern the president should be aware of concerns the use of eminent domain, the power of the government to seize property for a public use. Only Congress can authorize the president to seize property, and it certainly has not done so in this case. Two-thirds of the land along the border is owned by private individuals who may not want a border wall on their property. The president does not have the power, under the authority he has invoked so far, to take their land. He can, however, negotiate to buy their land with the newly available funds.

Aside from the present border wall dispute, people in both political parties have expressed fear that a future president could willy-nilly declare a national emergency on other priorities for which he can’t gain approval from the legislature, like guns or climate change. No doubt a president could declare such a national emergency, but the additional powers given to the president by declaring a national emergency are limited. Even with a national emergency declaration, there is no statute giving the president the power to seize guns or other private property. Even if there were a statute that said that, it would violate other constitutional provisions, such as the Due Process Clause or the Takings Clause.

Contrary to Democrats’ claims, this national emergency declaration does appear to be lawful. That doesn’t mean it’s good public policy, good precedent, or that it stands in the way of Congress simply reversing the national security declaration, as it has the power to do. But Democrats should think twice about hastily declaring the president’s action unlawful or unconstitutional. Doing so risks misinforming Americans about critical decisions made by their representatives and further eroding their trust in our system.

Devin Watkins is an attorney at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and author of a brief to the Supreme Court advocating a strong nondelegation doctrine.

When special counsel Robert Mueller concludes his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, it will be up to Attorney General William Barr to determine how much of the report to disclose to Congress and the public. He should release the full report.

Though CNN is reporting that as soon as next week Barr is going to announce that Mueller has concluded his report, we should take all such claims with a grain of salt, as predictions of the investigation’s end have proven premature many previous times.

That having been said, regardless of the actual timing, the rules governing the release will be the same.

Mueller will send a confidential report to the attorney general, who will then be required to send a summary to Congress. Such reports are described by the governing law as “brief notifications, with an outline of the actions and the reasons for them.”

But Barr could go further and release the full Mueller report, along with all of the transcripts of testimony and evidence supporting the various findings.

The reticence to release a full report in cases such as this come from an understandable place. Generally speaking, prosecutors should focus on providing evidence that backs up specific legal charges in court, whereas a full report may contain embarrassing information that is legal or references to potentially illegal behavior that could not be proven.

While this is an understandable concern, the reality is that if the full report and supporting materials are not released, we’re going to get portions of it leaked in dribs and drabs by anonymous sources with an agenda to push.

This has been the problem plaguing Russia reporting all along. The media has no direct knowledge about what is going on, so they’re relying on leaked information, even though some people have an interest in taking down Trump while others are interested in vindicating him.

Once the report hits, we’ll get anonymously sourced stories suggesting that Trump committed impeachable offenses and others claiming the report offers full vindication.

If the actual report is released, people who choose to read all the materials can judge for themselves whether the gathered evidence supports a given conclusion. And even if the average news consumer won’t actually be digging through potentially thousands of pages of Mueller’s documents, the fact that they are publicly available will act as a check on the proliferation of fake news through anonymous reports.

The demon of Trump collusion with Russia has cast a shadow over the administration since Day One. For over 2 years, the American people have been subjected to news stories suggesting that their president worked with a foreign adversary to win the election. If true, it carries with it the potential of removing from office a democratically elected president. If false, a lot of elected officials and members of the media have a lot of explaining to do.

Regardless of where anybody falls down on the Russia story or Trump in general, all sides should have an interest in full transparency in this case.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that it’s unconstitutional for states to steal people’s cars. That’s a great step forward in cracking down on civil asset forfeiture and the practice of states and cities seizing personal property as a means to raise money.

The decision is a victory for Tyson Timbs, an Indiana man who had been fighting the state to get his $42,000 Land Rover SUV back after it was seized during his arrest. He had purchased the vehicle with the proceeds from an insurance policy he received after his father’s death.

Nonetheless, the state thought that his guilty plea to selling a few hundred dollars in heroin to undercover police officers entitled them to the vehicle on the grounds that he had used it to transport drugs. As the Supreme Court explained, however, the forfeiture of the vehicle amounted to “more than four times the maximum $10,000 monetary fine assessable against Timbs for his drug conviction.”

That, by any measure, is excessive. So much so that it amounts to flat-out theft.

Indeed, no court disputed that seizing the vehicle amounted to an excessive fine. Instead, the Indiana Supreme Court justified the state’s seizure of the vehicle on the grounds that Eighth Amendment protections against excessive fines did not apply to states.

The U.S. Supreme Court disagreed, ruling that Eighth Amendment protections, including the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, excessive bail, protections against excessive fines, and other government abuses, are all “fundamental to our scheme of ordered liberty” and that states are bound to follow them under the Fourteenth Amendment.

There was, however, a slight disagreement over which part of the amendment is binding to states. The majority opinion, authored by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, relied on the Due Process Clause. Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch agreed, but explained in concordances that they would have relied on the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment rather than Due Process.

All agreed, however, that protections against seizures of property that amounted to excessive fines had a long history. The court traced that history all the way back to the Magna Carta and, in the U.S., to the Virginia Declaration of Rights. The Eighth Amendment in the Bill of Rights is the modern incarnation of these centuries-old rights.

After all, it’s impossible for any system that purports to protect rights and uphold justice to allow an arrest or conviction to become a license for the government to simply take whatever it wants from an individual.

That makes the ruling an important victory for criminal justice reform. It will hopefully prevent states and cities from abusing their authority to take property beyond what a court has ordered, thereby protecting the rights of individuals around the country.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that it’s unconstitutional for states to steal people’s cars. That’s a great step forward in cracking down on civil asset forfeiture and the practice of states and cities seizing personal property as a means to raise money.

The decision is a victory for Tyson Timbs, an Indiana man who had been fighting the state to get his $42,000 Land Rover SUV back after it was seized during his arrest. He had purchased the vehicle with the proceeds from an insurance policy he received after his father’s death.

Nonetheless, the state thought that his guilty plea to selling a few hundred dollars in heroin to undercover police officers entitled them to the vehicle on the grounds that he had used it to transport drugs. As the Supreme Court explained, however, the forfeiture of the vehicle amounted to “more than four times the maximum $10,000 monetary fine assessable against Timbs for his drug conviction.”

That, by any measure, is excessive. So much so that it amounts to flat-out theft.

Indeed, no court disputed that seizing the vehicle amounted to an excessive fine. Instead, the Indiana Supreme Court justified the state’s seizure of the vehicle on the grounds that Eighth Amendment protections against excessive fines did not apply to states.

The U.S. Supreme Court disagreed, ruling that Eighth Amendment protections, including the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, excessive bail, protections against excessive fines, and other government abuses, are all “fundamental to our scheme of ordered liberty” and that states are bound to follow them under the Fourteenth Amendment.

There was, however, a slight disagreement over which part of the amendment is binding to states. The majority opinion, authored by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, relied on the Due Process Clause. Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch agreed, but explained in concordances that they would have relied on the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment rather than Due Process.

All agreed, however, that protections against seizures of property that amounted to excessive fines had a long history. The court traced that history all the way back to the Magna Carta and, in the U.S., to the Virginia Declaration of Rights. The Eighth Amendment in the Bill of Rights is the modern incarnation of these centuries-old rights.

After all, it’s impossible for any system that purports to protect rights and uphold justice to allow an arrest or conviction to become a license for the government to simply take whatever it wants from an individual.

That makes the ruling an important victory for criminal justice reform. It will hopefully prevent states and cities from abusing their authority to take property beyond what a court has ordered, thereby protecting the rights of individuals around the country.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that it’s unconstitutional for states to steal people’s cars. That’s a great step forward in cracking down on civil asset forfeiture and the practice of states and cities seizing personal property as a means to raise money.

The decision is a victory for Tyson Timbs, an Indiana man who had been fighting the state to get his $42,000 Land Rover SUV back after it was seized during his arrest. He had purchased the vehicle with the proceeds from an insurance policy he received after his father’s death.

Nonetheless, the state thought that his guilty plea to selling a few hundred dollars in heroin to undercover police officers entitled them to the vehicle on the grounds that he had used it to transport drugs. As the Supreme Court explained, however, the forfeiture of the vehicle amounted to “more than four times the maximum $10,000 monetary fine assessable against Timbs for his drug conviction.”

That, by any measure, is excessive. So much so that it amounts to flat-out theft.

Indeed, no court disputed that seizing the vehicle amounted to an excessive fine. Instead, the Indiana Supreme Court justified the state’s seizure of the vehicle on the grounds that Eighth Amendment protections against excessive fines did not apply to states.

The U.S. Supreme Court disagreed, ruling that Eighth Amendment protections, including the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, excessive bail, protections against excessive fines, and other government abuses, are all “fundamental to our scheme of ordered liberty” and that states are bound to follow them under the Fourteenth Amendment.

There was, however, a slight disagreement over which part of the amendment is binding to states. The majority opinion, authored by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, relied on the Due Process Clause. Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch agreed, but explained in concordances that they would have relied on the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment rather than Due Process.

All agreed, however, that protections against seizures of property that amounted to excessive fines had a long history. The court traced that history all the way back to the Magna Carta and, in the U.S., to the Virginia Declaration of Rights. The Eighth Amendment in the Bill of Rights is the modern incarnation of these centuries-old rights.

After all, it’s impossible for any system that purports to protect rights and uphold justice to allow an arrest or conviction to become a license for the government to simply take whatever it wants from an individual.

That makes the ruling an important victory for criminal justice reform. It will hopefully prevent states and cities from abusing their authority to take property beyond what a court has ordered, thereby protecting the rights of individuals around the country.