High profile cases like that are high risk high reward for the prosecution. You can't let private militias start dictating how the country works, but you also can't fire up extremists and provide sympathy for their cause.

Judge Navarro admonished the government for “flagrant prosecutorial misconduct” and withholding “potentially exculpatory” evidence, including FBI logs on surveillance and sniper activity, threat-assessment reports indicating that the Bundys were not dangerous, and internal reports about misconduct involving BLM agents.