The people hiding behind the front men aren’t stupid.
The hacks haven’t actually tried arresting anyone on a hate crime charge yet.
And they likely won’t because they know that the DoJ likely won’t want to act until someone has actually been arrested.
So the hacks will continue to issue the threats, which serve their purposes in a number of ways that are less likely to get them locked up.
To my mind the threat by a public official ought to be enough, but I doubt the DoJ agrees.
“the threat by a public official ought to be enough”
Agreed—threatening to jail journalists (including citizen journalists) for doing their job must violate a bunch of federal statutes.