I'm not directly involved in this case but I've had my own situations with Dani.
Dani really likes to abuse the mute command in my opinion, and he is one of the main reasons I proposed to entirely remove the offtopic rule. But most likely Mike doesn't know that people like dani exist purely to mute and stop conversations in general.
Mike himself even said that he won't expect the rule to be enforced so strictly, and dani is the only moderator/admin who actually enforces it and he does so very strictly.
Dani is literally the only staff member who enforces it, and to the point where even admins make fun of him doing it. I'm actually stunned at how much dani's ass gets itchy because of someone sending an unrelated gif in general, its stupid.