Without the they
, the sentence has an indirect object but lacks a direct object. Thus, it is not a complete sentence. QED.
It asserts O'Keefe and Dai admitted something to feds who, it also asserts, worked with the other two defendants in setting up the crime, er, operation. But it fails to complete the sentence by stating what the hell O'Keefe and Dai admitted! IOW, we have a parse error! Aka Freudian slip!!
I stand corrected.
Didn’t Ray Stevens have a song called “Freudian Slip”? ;-P
The sentence DOES parse without the word “they”.
Without the “they”, the sentence has an indirect object but lacks a direct object. Thus, it is not a complete sentence. QED.
It asserts O’Keefe and Dai admitted something to feds who, it also asserts, worked with the other two defendants in setting up the crime, er, operation. But it fails to complete the sentence by stating what the hell O’Keefe and Dai admitted! IOW, we have a parse error! Aka Freudian slip!!
This is something else about the case that doesn’t pass the smell test for me - O’Keefe & Company are all intelligent, educated and well centered young adults. Not only that - everyone knows from watching the cop shows that when arrested you say only one thing - “LAWYER!”
The smell I smell is, “Rogue federal agents who have lied and now committed perjury by making false statements.”