Anthropologist Jim Taylor argues that the arrests were the "ruling palace regime" trying to consolidate royalist power by eliminating non-royalist high-ranking monks. Taylor pointed out that the suspects of the investigations were innocent until proven guilty, yet were all defrocked before trial and stripped of decades of monastic seniority only for being accused of the crimes. The only royalist monk arrested was Buddha Issara. In July 2018, the junta passed a law giving the Thai king the ability to select members of the Sangha Supreme Council, the governing body of Thai monks, instead of the monks themselves. The alleged scandals of the 2017–18 Thai temple fraud investigations and the resulting arrests were cited as the reason for the change.