When stonewalled, he didn’t whine, didn’t bargain, didn’t cave and, most important, didn’t accept delay. Like any good investigator, he recognizes that the investigative picture will always be somewhat incomplete. He has simply taken note of the fact that x, y and z won’t be providing new testimony and moved on. He appears to have taken note of line from the Stones, which might be the investigator’s creed: ”You can’t always get what, but if you try sometime, you just might find, you get what you need.”

Recall that the investigation was underway before McCain Inc took over; Branchflower no doubt has a great deal of information, probably plenty to make out a basic case of abuse of authority. The smart investigator in this situation simply presents what he can dead solid prove or solidly infer. He notes at each point that opportunity was presented to the target of the investigation to explain or provide context, and that, at each point and at their option, they refused. The investigator can also do the old ’I support the 5th Amendment’ thing, which is, of course, a backdoor way of pointing out that the investigating party is, in essence, ’taking the 5th’ (call it refusal to honor a subpeona, tomato, tomahto).

Of course McCain et al will go nuts, characterize the investigation as a witchhunt, and (as hypocrisy is no barrier at all to this crowd) complain bitterly that the findings don’t contain the defense or context (which, of course, they refused to provide). Branchflower can and, I believe, will anticipate that, and be careful to mention at each point that Palin, staff or spouse wouldn’t provide testimony, documents or emails in their own defense. He will, I bet, make a version of that statement in virtually every paragraph of his findings.

Properly configured, the report will be just as effective as if Palin and pals had testified.