It's called Good Cop/Bad Cop, and its a cliche because it works.
Moran didn't threaten it, because he didn't have to. He just didn't deny that someone else might bring it up.
Moran would not be able to make it work, if his goverment explicitly denied that it would ever be used.
I don't know about that. Do you have links? (I don't want to pay to get the Atlantic article, if you refer to that.)