Steve Thomas's confessions, limited though they may be, are sickening. I'm guessing that Lin Wood was not permitted to question ST beyond what was pertinent to Chris Wolf's case, or else Wood would have delved deeper with Thomas.

I noticed that Thomas claimed to have eaten only one meal with the Whites (the dinner), while in his book he admitted to breakfasting with Fleet.

As it is, we now know Thomas and the Whites had a relationship than what wasn't proper and shop around for an inexperienced and politically naive detective to bond with? After establishing an emotional bond (Steve felt a great deal of compassion for them) with Thomas, the Whites proceeded to manipulate him by promoting the idea that the DA was bad, corrupt, unwilling to indict, and preventing the decent, hardworking police from bringing the killer parents to justice. Since there is always different legal standards for the prosecutors (proving guilt beyond reasonable doubt) and for cops (probable guilt to charge), there is likely always some degree of conflict, and Thomas was too inexperienced and naive to realize that.

I believe that this crusade was a red herring, because the Whites were very supportive of Thomas who leaked to journalists, yet condemned Hunter for doing the same. So, talking to journalists could not have been a reason for wanting to remove Hunter. Was the real reason because Hunter placed Fleet among his top suspects?

I believe that their conversations (75 percent of the time) which weren't written up by Thomas, as they should have been, were likely focused on frustrations with the DA and the many reasons why the DA's were preventing justice for JonBenet. The Whites and Thomas have expressed almost identical opinions on the matter.

Thomas appears to have been a very compromised detective--overlooking intruder evidence and bias when reviewing evidence of Fleet's suspicious behavior.