Mob-style criminal investigations (like what is happening in DC right now) is that they collapse all of a sudden, without much external sign. They look totally intact one second, and quite wobbly the next. All of a sudden a lower person starts to “squeal.” And once that first crack in the dam starts, there is often a mad dash for each person to save themselves.
It really is the classic “prisoner’s dilemma.” A person can “stay strong” and never rat out their superiors, but that may well mean that they will be the last one in the room holding the bag, and will end up in prison.
Or, in perhaps the better analogy, do you want to be in the last group of soldiers of the Greek/Roman phalanx who has not run? Indeed, that’s when the massacre happens. So the question becomes,”When do you cut and run?”
And remember that the Greeks said that Phobos, the god of fear, rules the battlefield. Because every particle of good sense that you have says to cut and run away fast. And yet, if you do, both you and your compatriots will likely be massacred. But you don’t want to be the last one to run, either.
Aye, there’s the a rub…