Let’s say you lied on a required federal firearms form to conceal your use of illegal drugs so you could buy a .38 caliber handgun, then you irresponsibly lost that gun across the street from a school, and then the government found video evidence of you waving that gun around while cavorting with a prostitute.

If you had done all those things within a few days in 2018, do you suppose that by five years later, the government would have taken exactly zero action against you?

No arrest.

No indictment.

No prosecution.

In fact, do you think that, if it were you who had done all these things, the only government action would be an apparent attempt by a federal law-enforcement agency — say, the Secret Service — to conceal what had happened?