I assessed from the responses, especially to my son-in-law where they responded to his link between the upcoming litigation and Jon's absence, "you have good instincts and should trust your gut", that either their lawyers, or the BLM laywers, or both, didn't want LAC's participation. I'm not sure why the administration couldn't demonstrate wholehearted support for Thacker Pass without it being interpreted adversely by a court, but I'm no legal expert.

Or, as WB DT and a couple others have speculated, perhaps the update later this week will include some sort of special relationship with the government. During the roundtable yesterday it was mentioned that early in TSLA's days they received a government loan as part of a "partnership", which TSLA has subsequently paid back. Perhaps they could provide the remainder of the development cost for TP, leaving the project fully funded and 100% owned by LAC. 

A piece of new (to me at least), detailed information I got from their response to my email was the part about the "planned" 23 June digging being on only a half acre, and that the injunction (or agreement, really) to delay until 29 July was both anticipated and built into their existing timeline. Seems like this initial digging was planned specifically to get the inevitable litigation underway, as I had speculated a few days ago. If so, these guys are really playing a sophisticated game.