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I agree. Mueller knew the story was fake, and was afraid that the truth would come out. If he said nothing and allowed the story to dominate the news for days, and later people realized it was fake all along, he would be discredited...sort of like Dan Rather and the fake documents in 2004.

I don't doubt that he is still determined to take down Trump--but he may be thinking of inflicting enough damage that Trump is defeated for re-election, knowing that Trump has done nothing which would justify two-thirds of the Senate voting to remove him from office.

That doesn't mean that the House won't vote for articles of impeachment. I figure the list will be longer than four items, to surpass the number of articles of impeachment voted against Bill Clinton. They will all be highly tendentious items (like firing Comey being obstruction of justice, or letting foreign diplomats stay in his hotel being a violation of the emoluments clause). Friday's story could even re-appear: they could ask Michael Cohen to testify that Trump had asked him to lie to Congress (and give him limited immunity to protect him from prosecution for perjury).