The Spectator reports the essence of the most recent story the massive raid on the polygamist ranch in Texas:

In short, the phone call for help upon which the raid was based is about to be revealed as the complete fraud I pronounced it to be a few days ago. Sarah Jessop Barlow, whose marriage records the Child Protective Service claimed to have found in compound records, apparently doesn't exist. Meanwhile, the man named as Sarah's rapist and abuser has been living in Arizona and has not set foot in Texas since 1977. Thus, the police declined to arrest him.

The entire case against the polygamy compound is at stake here. The only evidence of a crime has been collected on the basis of a warrant issued in response to a hoax. Thus, according to precedent and the Constitution, all such evidence should be inadmissible. Nevertheless, the authorities are already staking out the position that the search is on solid legal ground as long as police acted in good faith - or as long as they believed the call was real. Moreover, according to the Dallas Morning News, Stephanie Goodman, chief spokeswoman for all of Texas' social services agencies, said she doesn't know if the calls that prompted CPS' sweep were a hoax. "It doesn't matter," Ms. Goodman said. She said that while the calls "got us to the gates, it's not what caused us to remove the children."

Although I am not surprised that legalities matter little or not at all to officials at the social service agenies, whether or not the call was a hoax matters under the law. It matters especially if the agency had reason to believe the call was a hoax. Which raises a key and yet unexplored question. The Arizona Republic states that the police "eventually traced the calls" to Swinton. I use the plural because the case seems to be based on a series of calls made to Flora Jessop -- a former FLDS member and current executive director for the Child Protection Project. Jessop asked the Texas authorities to investigate even though Jessop said she gradually became suspicious as the caller altered her story, saying she was actually Sarah's twin sister, Laura. Jessop said she met with Texas state police and allowed them to listen in and trace some calls. When asked about her recent statements that the calls were legitimate, Jessop answered that she had to maintain the pretense that her caller was real so that Texas police could continue investigating. In short, the authorities themselves seemed to believe it was necessary to perpetuate the fraud in order to continue the investigation.

A question. The first phone call came occurred in late March. The raid was on April 4th. If the authorities already had a trace on the calls, then one of two statements is true: they decided not to wait a few days to verify that the calls originated within the compound; or, they knew the calls originated outside of Texas...but they didn't care. Which is it? Perhaps Ms. Jessop provides a clue. When asked about claims she made earlier this week that the calls were legitimate, Jessop answered that she had to maintain the pretense her caller was real so that Texas police could continue investigating. In short, the authorities themselves believed it was necessary to perpetuate the fraud in order to continue the investigation.

The Spectator article concludes, After police first swooped down on the Eldorado ranch, the raid was compared to the deadly 1993 raid on another Texas cult compound, David Koresh's Branch Davidian sect near Waco. If it turns out that the FLDS raid was the result of a bogus call from Swinton, however, other comparisons -- to the McMartin Preschool case or the Duke University rape hoax -- may be more appropriate.