When the rumor that the Duggar compound had been raided by the FBI first began to make its way across social media, even the family's harshest critics were skeptical.

Sure, the Duggars have been involved in some very shady behaviors over the years, but they're also famous, well-connected, wealthy and white.

Let's not forget that Josh Duggar molested five young girls and no legal consequences of any kind.

In other words, the feds aren't cracking down on the Duggars over some unpaid parking tickets.

Given the family's upper-echelon political connections, they would need to be caught in something pretty serious to incur the wrath of the US government.

And so, for that reason, many Duggar despisers felt that the raid simply seemed too good to be true -- but they were wrong.

Granted, some of the details of the initial report were inaccurate:

We now know that it was Josh Duggar's business that was raided, not his parents' home.

And the agents who kicked in the door were representatives of the Department of Homeland Security, not the FBI.

This latter fact was confirmed by an HSI agent who spoke to the media earlier this week:

“[I do not dispute the information that] HSI was present there [Duggar home] pursuant to an ongoing federal criminal investigation," the spokesperson said when asked about recent developments in the investigation.

After that clarification, however, the agency went mum:

“Given that there are no charges filed, HSI doesn’t discuss the nature of any type of investigation until, if or when, charges are filed,” the source said.

As the folks at Starcasm have pointed out, it's entirely possible that the Duggars are in the dark about exactly why they're being investigated.

So it's possible they're not technically lying when they say they're not “the target of any investigation of any kind.”

Still, the Duggars' public statements are clearly designed to give the impression that there was no raid, and Josh is completely in the clear -- and neither claim could be further from the truth.

“We were shocked to see a news report today state that our home was raided by federal law enforcement agencies,” the Duggars told People on Tuesday.

“This is not true.”

While the nature of the government's interest in Josh remains unclear -- and it's entirely possible that nothing will come of this at all -- that statement amounts to a brazen attempt at obfuscation from the Duggars.

They capitalized on the inaccuracies in early media reports by issuing a statement that -- while technically true -- is still shrouded in dishonesty.

Yes, none of the Duggars' homes were raided, but Josh's business was, and instead of seizing this opportunity to address the matter, they pursued their usual "deflect" and hide.

The Department of Homeland Security investigates a number of very serious matters including child labor and human trafficking.

It remains possible that no major developments will arise from this investigation -- but the fact that the Duggars are going to such great lengths to bury the truth has led many to the conclusion that they're hiding something big.