FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson has his lawyers in court asking the judge to delay an ongoing and longstanding suit against Amazon. The excuse is this:

Our resource constraints are severe[.]

Oh, wah. The convenience of the government is no excuse for this—or any—delay. Our Constitution requires a speedy and public trial, and that extends to civil trials, also, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, as this one surely does. There is nothing in either of those two Amendments, or anywhere else in our Constitution, that caveats any of our rights on what any Government personage decides is convenient to himself.

The FTC’s attempt is just another cynical attempt to drag out an intrinsically lousy suit in the hope that Amazon eventually will roll over and “settle.”

No. Amazon should refuse any sort of settlement other than a court declaratory ruling in Amazon’s favor, with legal and reputational damages awarded Amazon. In an ideal world, the judge either would so rule, or he would dismiss the case with prejudice (with costs awarded) and heavily fiscally sanction the FTC’s lawyers for seeking to extend so blatantly obvious a frivolous suit.