There doesn't seem to be any direct evidence against Uber itself so far, which makes me question why Uber didn't fire Levandowski five minutes after he plead th

There doesn't seem to be any direct evidence against Uber itself so far, which makes me question why Uber didn't fire Levandowski five minutes after he plead the fifth and refused to let his personal devices be searched for the stolen files. It would go a long way towards removing their guilt through association, and weaken Google's case against Uber (Levandowski seems hosed either way). As an outsider, I can only think of one logical reason why they haven't done this. It seems likely that someone in Uber -- possibly Travis Kalanick himself -- knew about the IP theft ahead of time and approved the purchase of Levandowski's company anyway. So if they throw Levandowski under the bus, he may turn around and testify against Uber proper as part of a plea bargain. This fits the old law of criminal conspiracies: you have to hang together, or else you'll all hang separately. :)