In a lot of ways, Maguire sounded like Mueller in his reasoning for why he made a personal decision (and it was his decision) on a matter of law, Mueller with the decision not to indict and Maguire on whether or not the complaint under the “urgent concern” classification. The difference is that Mueller made clear that, since he couldn’t make that decision himself, he left it to Congress to address the matter. Maguire just handed it off to his boss and was told to hand it off to his underboss, who quickly moved to bury the whole matter.

If not for the IG’s office, they might very well have succeeded.