[lp0_on_fire]

That's all well and good for the DOJ, which has virtually unlimited time and funding with an army of lawyers. No so much for regular Joe who is caught in the position OP discussed.

The threat of legal action alone is enough to scare _most_ people in this country because they simply can't afford it.

[sodality2]

By that logic, if the law doesn’t actually matter, a regular police officer could also simply threaten the same thing, and there’s nothing differentiating them with the FBI. In both cases it would scare most people because they can’t afford it.

[Supermancho]

That is the current state of the US law enforcement (2022). What's interesting about extortion by law enforcement, is that they are not held accountable for describing things that are not true. It's not extortion, if a hypothetical situation is presented as an investigatory method and goes no further.