Sealed indictments are a miniscule part of the numbers cited.

The numbers are a running total of ALL sealed "proceedings" of any sort, taken apparently from PACER. PACER does NOT break out sealed indictments. The numbers keep going up because whoever puts this stuff together never bothers to check back and REMOVE cases that are dismissed, done, unsealed, etc.

Further, those numbers on the chart represent all manner of things--sealed search warrants, sealed juvenile proceedings, sealed wiretap applications and minimization reports, sealed pen register requests, sealed ex parte motions, sealed juror records, sealed names of sex crime victims, and literally dozens of other things that are routinely sealed by the clerk upon request of law enforcement or the parties.

Check for yourself. SOME DOJ offices in the US actually break down "sealed indictments" separately in their yearly reports. I went to the trouble to check. In Oklahoma, for example, there were a grand total of 8 sealed indictments in one year, not the ridiculously high number on the chart. Big states will be harder, because there may be several federal districts within one large state, and each office may prepare and issue its own annual report, so the research is a bit harder.

Many people are just spinning their wheels on this story, year after year. I'm not going to argue about it, I'm done, but you might use your search engine and see what lawyers and others have said about this chart.