Two weeks ago, an inspector general for the U.S. Department of the Interior insisted that when hundreds of heavily armed officers from the Bureau of Prisons and Park Police cleared peaceful protestors from Lafayette Square with rubber bullets, flash bangs, and tear gas, it was perfectly okay—because those things were done to protect contractors setting up a fence, not to clear the way for Donald Trump to wander across the park and wave a Bible over his head. But at the same time, the Department of Justice was in court arguing that Donald Trump and William Barr could not be sued over the incident, because Lafayette Square was cleared to protect Trump, and “presidential safety” made everything fine.

It might seem like the IG ruling would give the DOJ an excuse to step back and stop defending Trump for taking violent actions against nonviolent protestors. That didn’t happen. Instead, the Justice Department pressed ahead, and on Tuesday District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee, handed down a ruling that dismissed the majority of four suits involving the incident .

Included in that ruling was a decision that seems to explicitly embrace the idea that the actions taken at Lafayette Square were done to protect Trump. However, it also invokes a term that has become all too familiar from the many cases involving police officers across the nation: Trump and Barr have “qualified immunity” in their actions. Judge Freidreich followed this up by completely dismissing the section of the suit asking for an injunction against future actions.

The court cases come from four different groups, one being Black Lives Matter, and break down into a number of potential claims, including a claim of damages for violations of several amendments; a call for an injunction against future actions; a claim of criminal conspiracy against Black people; and violations of several federal acts. Almost all of them were dismissed.

On the damages claim, Fredrich quickly dismisses the damage claim, agreeing with lawyers from the DOJ that the claims fall outside the “limited jurisdiction” of a district court, and that “the individual defendants are entitled to qualified immunity.” The first part of this involved a lot of avoiding any “new context” that would have given protection to constitutional rights. In essence, Friedrich appears to agree that, because there has not been a case specifically dealing with this situation, it’s outside of the district court’s ability to rule. So … dismissed.

A big part of what the lawsuits requested didn’t involve punishment for the events of that day, or payment to those injured, but “injunctive relief” that would stop future incidents of violence against those gathered for the purposes of First Amendment protest. The plaintiffs requested that the government be prevented from “deploying physical force without provocation, warning, or legal grounds to do so.”

Judge Friedrich refused to grant that relief, saying that just because the people who filed these suits were directed to be assaulted by the government, and in some cases injured, in this case they don’t have any standing in to try and prevent future cases in which the same thing may occur. Who would have standing to request that the government be instructed to not go around attacking nonviolent protestors without warning? Nobody.

In this particular case, Judge Friedrich has decided that even if “federal officers used law enforcement response as cover” to deliberately target nonviolent peaceful demonstrators, that’s not an issue. Because just because they’ve done it once, doesn’t mean that they’ll do it again. Or at least, it doesn’t mean they’ll do it again specifically against any of those who filed a suit in this case. And that makes the whole thing “simply too speculative” for the petitioners to have standing.

For the plaintiffs to have had standing, they would have needed evidence not just of events on that day, but that they had been targeted for future events. Without that evidence … no standing. And no standing means case dismissed. However, a fraction of this claim survives in the form of allowing plaintiffs to sue for relief of the restrictions still placed on Lafayette Square. On the conspiracy claim, Friedrich dismisses it almost out of hand. She writes both that “The plaintiffs’ have failed to adequately plead the first two essential elements” of a conspiracy, and again that Trump, Barr, and others are entitled to qualified immunity. “For these reasons, the conspiracy claims will be dismissed.”

Finally, the suits argue that actions in clearing Lafayette Square represent a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. However, since the Posse Comitatus Act represents criminal law, with the possibility of fines and imprisonment, Judge Friedrich states simply that: “the PCA does not create a private civil cause of action for damages.” She spends some time looking at whether Congress intended there to be a possibility to sue under the act, but determines that “the evidence is lacking here.” So Posse Comitatus can be the subject of legal action by a government actor, but not civil action by individuals. “The Court finds no reason to depart from the weight of the authority and will dismiss the plaintiffs’ claim for damages under the PCA.”

Just about the only part of the suits that is preserved are the parts that don’t involve Trump and Barr, but are instead claims against individual officers from the various agencies involved. There, Friedrich finds that the “the plaintiffs have plausibly alleged a constitutional violation” in the violation of their First Amendment rights.

It’s in this section that the DOJ continues to argue directly against the finding of the inspector general:

But this portion of the claim is not dismissed. Neither is a claim of “First Amendment retaliation.” However, other claims involving municipal liability were dismissed, as Friedrich ruled the evidence wasn’t sufficient to show that the agencies involved had failed to sufficiently train their officers on matters involving race.

At the end, the only standing claim against the federal targets involves continuing restrictions on access to Lafayette Square. All that’s left of the rest of the suit are some claims against individual officers, but not against the municipalities involved. If the plaintiffs want to chase the damage charge, they’ll have to appeal to a court that can deal more completely with claims that create “new context.”

So, not a thing that will make Trump or Barr do anything but smile.

The ACLU has issued a statement: