They have no case but infinitely deep pockets and can drag this out almost forever. The ‘tactic’ is SOP for all govt agencies bend on punishing someone for whatever reason they feel like. The ATF does this all the time. In their case guns taken are generally stolen (ie lost) or damaged. Almost anyone (even liberals) can easily see this is wrong. Unless radical changes are made Gibson should come to peace w/ loosing their property and move on. They’ll spend more on lawyers fees than the goods are worth. Perhaps they can recoup it when it comes up at a govt auction for pennies on the dollar. Then again the govt may just decide to burn it all.
Correct. There's no incentive whatsoever for this to be handled with any expediency. In fact, there may be perverse incentives that result in the slow processing of this issue (ie: an audit of how many cases they have open, or an inventory of seized products).
You don't want to get yourself mixed up in any type of bureaucracy. In the Gov, everything works exactly opposite of the way it does in private industry.