“And why didn’t they open a ‘probe’ when they received the laptop almost a year ago?”
Here’s my response to a similar question on another thread:
From what I have seen, the FIB seized the laptop in December, 2019, pursuant to a subpoena issued by a federal grand jury sitting in Delaware and signed by DOJ District Attorney for the Federal District of Delaware. Federal Grand Juries sit for 18 months minimum, but usually meet no more than once a month. During any given session, the grand jurors may hear evidence on a number of unrelated prosecutions.
With that background, let’s assume the FIB seized the laptop in December, 2019, and that the first grand jury session after the seizure was in January, 2020. Since grand jury proceedings are secret, we can only speculate whether the Biden investigation was on the grand jury agenda for January or even February. In March, Covid 19 shut down the federal court system for just about every civil and criminal proceeding, except for life or death matters, trials in progress, and criminal cases (post-indictment) on the cusp of dismissal due to speedy trial issues. The federal courts did not reopen again until late June - July, and given the backlog of cases, the federal grand jury in Delaware may only be in the early stages of the Bidden investigation.
My point is that grand jury investigations can take a long time, and violent crimes, drug dealing, organized crime, etc., take priority over money laundering, bribery, and non-violent political corruption. That’s the reality of the federal grand jury process.
That's not the way things work normally. Long before the case is presented to the Grand Jury in complex cases such as this with virtual a cornucopia of data, it must be logged as individual items as exhibits and investigated for veracity with available second sources. For DOJ/FBI this means accessing State Depart, IRS, NSA and other intel agencies. A whole lot of cross connections, establishing links, timelines, etc. A prosecutor does not bring a case to the GJ without proper prep. This is not some simple homicide.