> There is nothing unusual at all about suspects going into hiding. This is everyday stuff for prosecutions, and the normal thing to do is to indict and keep it sealed, not wait years to indict for funsies.

Are there other examples of suspects being granted asylum by a foreign government? It seems to me like that wouldn't be very likely in a vast majority of cases. It seems just as reasonable that DOJ needed to wait until Ecuador had dropped asylum and given the green light.

It seems like a stretch to say that the timing alone proves this is politically motivated when there were extenuating circumstances preventing the indictment. If you think the political landscape or future charges have a possibility of swaying Ecuador into discontinuing their grant of asylum then this seems like a pretty reasonable course of events.