Former FBI agent Dan Brunner: This to me appears to be just like many other cases where this Department of Justice and the FBI get on a podium in front of cameras and pound the podium, saying we’re conducting this investigation or we’re arresting this individual. I could count how many investigations or indictments have come down in the last year which quietly have been shut down. MS-13 investigations—where they have a press conference, ‘We arrested this individual,’ and six days later all charges were dropped. But they had a big press conference six days earlier, and Instagram and everybody’s talking about it—and then quietly, the charges disappear. It’s not uncommon to me that they’re doing this for the Instagram, for the social media—for ‘we’re conducting this investigation.’ But when it gets down to the meat and potatoes of it—when it comes to proving beyond a reasonable doubt in court that crimes were committed—it’s very difficult for them to gather all the evidence. I worked with some fantastic AUSAs in my years, and what they always said to me is they’re not going to charge unless they’re ready to go to court that day. We didn’t charge just to charge. And that’s what it seems to me now—it’s what they’re doing. They’re charging just to get the news cycle, to get the alert: ‘Hey, we’re investigating this.’ So it doesn’t surprise me that if there isn’t something there that this one falls apart.”