Sure. This one is a few years old, but I've been reading a lot of books on overcriminalization and this is one that burned itself into my brain:
Case Studies
I think you're splitting hairs -- a search-and-seizure like this is an obvious prelude to either a prosecution or a settlement. The Feds wouldn't be going after Gibson so publicly unless they meant to do bad things to them, given the opportunity.
You seem to be operating under the assumption that the President runs the Department of Justice. He certainly has authority over the DoJ, but he doesn't spend any portion of his day looking over the shoulders of the US Attorneys employed there -- that's the Attorney General's job. Either this was started by an ambitious US Attorney, or the Attorney General felt like it, but I rate the potential that Obama directed this at "low."
Because they want to see how far they can get on this one before they start chasing after other people or companies for related offenses. This is a test case.
Because this is a problem that goes way beyond any President. It has to do with how the American public perceives justice and, again, how prosecutors are in turn perceived.
Generally speaking, the American people equate prison sentences and fines with justice -- the higher the sentence or the larger the fine, the greater the measure of justice achieved. Obviously, not
everybody looks at it that way, and even those who do can
from time to time look at a hefty sentence or fine and go, "Whoah, that's too much." Regardless, that
general observation holds true in
most cases.
The proof of that is to be found in how our politicians from coast to coast talk about crime and punishment -- "tough on crime" is a desirable stamp to claim for oneself, and always translates to an expansion of the number of criminal offenses, longer sentences, mandatory minimums, and ultimately higher arrest and prosecution rates. To resist any of these in any way, or to fail to promote their expansion in some way, is to run the risk of being branded "soft on crime."
The public as a whole wants more ways for the government to criminalize and arrest people, and wants convicts to suffer stiffer penalties -- and so our politicians duel with each other in an endless tennis match of more-is-better.
