[mreiland]

The obvious counter-argument is that simply talking to them isn't enough. Sure, it's a "period of silence", but that could very well mean figurative silence rather than literal silence.

He could have spent every single conversation putting them off rather than working with them, which is what's implied by the 'literal silence' anyway.

We don't exactly know what was said in those conversations, so it's hard to know whether he was silent or not. What we do know is that they weren't very fruitful for the DOJ, so it's not outlandish to assume he was simply putting them off.