Belligerent Ignorance

You see this in a lot of places.

“Do you remember when the Panama Papers came out and revealed that the rich all across the world were dodging taxes and literally[sic] nothing happened?”

Government officials that got fired or resigned/things that happened

Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, PM of Iceland

Nawaz Sharif, PM of Pakistan

Gonzalo Delaveu, President of Transparency, Chile

There are more. Look here on Reddit or here at wikipedia more broadly.

Of note is that the way taxes work in the USA, the kind of shell company revealed wasn’t as useful to Americans as to other foreign nationals. Equally significant, the US has criminal protections such as the Fourth Amendment that limit what can be used by prosecutors. Using such evidence isn’t always impossible; it just takes a lot of time and creates a lot of legal hurdles. I think investigations related to international tax dodging should be a higher priority than it is, but the notion that nothing is happening is simply not correct.

“Remember when a bunch of senators profited about the impending coronavirus epidemic and literally[sic] nothing happened?”

Justice Department investigating possible insider trading

Richard Burr seeks ethics investigation regarding insider trading Note: Burr was one of those implicated. He’s seeking an investigation to clear his name.

Also, this happened a few months ago and was revealed due to filings about a month ago. Most law enforcement agencies don’t reveal investigations until they file charges, which is often a matter of months to years. Impatience aside, this is a developing story.

I picked these two instances because both are commonly associated with absolute terms, ‘nothing happened,’ which can be disproven objectively. Things did happen. The more relevant statement, ‘not enough happened,’ is subjective, and one person’s not-enough might be another’s plenty. In the USA, the FBI often takes lead on such matters, but like all government agencies, they have limited budget, staff, and time. I think such issues are more important than playing politics and would prefer the DOJ in general focus on such matters.