Of course the sentiments affected the actions. How could they not have? They match exactly.
These scumbags need to be made examples of. For all time................
Pruitt is out and that treasonous bastad Rosenweasel is still there l don’t get it.
The key is that the sentiments and the "pressure" changed their behavior so as not to employ the regular order of investigations in many relevant ways. Defying the odds, those ways all trend in one direction and each one has a weighting factor and moment in normal practice to take a different course, both to avoid institutional bias and to conform with proper procedure. As the article noted the level of gum-shoeing is out of these executives' leagues. Such people's tendency is to overwhelm and "use a cannon to kill a mosquito" (as Confucius said). In doing so, they reveal the authority of their position.
I look forward to further revelation that the "pressure" came from the person already noted to be extremely and unusually interested in everything the CI unit was doing.
In the real world, there is a reason the president is not supposed to comment publicly on pending investigations and court cases (think Contreras, the FISA judge), so as not to skew their outcome. How much more that consideration applies when its effect will inherently apply institutionally connected "pressure" that may well have an impact on their professional careers and compensation!