I just don't think it's a "we're scared shitless of Trump because he's going to take us down," move. It's a "we can't get enough of fucking with Trump and he can't do shit to stop us," move.

They would have to be pretty blind to think that there's not going to be blowback politically, even by establishment Republicans, or MAGA adjacent people like Ted Cruz. They kind of have to respond to this because there's no reason that they wouldn't be next. After all, Cruz has been accused of attempting to assassinate AOC by co-ordinating the Jan 6 'attacks on the Capitol', and was wearing far-right iconography on his boots.

It's 1,000 times worse than when they raided Project Veritas at the behest of the New York Times, and even then you had journalistic and legal organizations coming out and saying, "uhhh... we want O'Keefe dead as much as you do, but this makes us look shady as shit."

If it were a "he can't do shit", it would be really stupid.

If anything, I would think it would be so malicious that they are hoping it would cause right-wing violence.