This is meant to be a verse by verse study, but there are some very short verses in John, so the rule will be broken every now and then.
The priests and Levites had been sent by the Sanhedrin, and now we see that the Pharisees had been sent as well. So this was quite an investigation team. The Pharisees were the strictest religious group (one could say they were the Calvinists of their day, I do actually quite like Calvinists and am a fan of James White). So they would be the heavyweights, asking the deep probing questions if the priests and Levites failed to get anywhere, as indeed was the case.
As mentioned earlier, only priests were meant to baptise. So if John was no one special ( ie not the Messiah, not the Prophet, not Elijah) why was he doing so?
As an aside, there are some churches who will only allow ordained ministers to administer communion or baptise people. Now it is important that these things are done properly, and other churches have a too informal approach, but it does not seem to be essential that it is an ordained minister.
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