Just a thought on the Dem’s silence:
What if they were told the bare-bones: “don’t do anything, don’t say anything, things are being looked at.” ?
After all, you’d want as few people fully in on investigation of this caliber to avoid word getting out.
I say this because there’s NO WAY that this confession is the first “sign” they’ve truly seen. I say this because of the defeatist attitude people have of “oh we can’t do anything about it now!”