I agree it has always been a threat, what I'm questioning is the validity of the Tron/Justin statements being such an impending threat to justify such an aggressive response to a rather influential new stakeholder. Was this threat seriously that credible, or was it maybe hyped up more than it should have been by witnesses fearing the worse case scenario, that being their positions of power?

"It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it." - Aung San Suu Kyi

The current optics look terrible, new owner of Steemit Inc has stake locked by the witnesses, due to trust and uncertainty of new owner's intentions, also because that sake was illegitimately ninja mined by previous owner, which the witnesses have always know about, yet chose to do nothing because they trusted him, but who is also now suspected of legal fraud in the sale of Steemit Inc, who the witnesses now don't trust anymore.