Standing outside the federal courthouse whose jurisdiction he barely recognized, a victorious Ryan Bundy appeared fit to burst the buttons on his black leather vest.

Who could blame him? He’d beaten the government boys at their own game.

With a swarm of reporters and supporters leaning in to hear every word, Bundy adjusted his white cowboy hat and held forth Wednesday morning about the splendors of the U.S. Constitution and the righteousness of his Bunkerville ranching family’s battle against the blundering and tyrannical Bureau of Land Management.

After calling out the prosecution for willfully violating evidence discovery rules, U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro declared a mistrial and gave the four defendants facing decades in prison a stunning victory. Men considered the main instigators in a criminal conspiracy case arising from an armed standoff with federal officers providing security for a court-ordered cattle impoundment were one step closer to riding off into the sunset.

For Ryan Bundy, each citizen is a sovereign who grants the government its authority. He also believes the Constitution gives law enforcement power only to an elected county sheriff and not to federal law enforcement agencies such as the FBI and, in this case, the BLM.

“It’s all in the Constitution,” Bundy said. “If you want to know exactly what (powers) they got, read the Constitution. I believe the Constitution is not so subject to interpretation. Read it. Understand it.”

Without a hint of irony he held forth about the importance of avoiding “mob rule” in a republic. His family’s own actions had trampled the rule of law when it invited armed men to act as bully boys during the April 12, 2014 standoff. Except, of course, that the Bundys decided they didn’t recognize federal authority.

Meanwhile, Ryan Bundy’s brother and fellow co-defendant Ammon Bundy was generously thanking God and the Founding Fathers’ divinely inspired document.

“I don’t believe there’s a jury in this country that would convict us, because the truth is on our side,” Ammon Bundy said, later adding “I believe that God has favored us.”

The Constitution and God may indeed have favored them. But their gratitude was woefully incomplete.

Although I may have missed a comment or two in all the chaos near the courthouse steps, I don’t recall hearing the Bundy brothers thank the judge, their court-appointed defense team, or law-abiding Nevada residents. Although Ryan Bundy represented himself at trial, he benefited from the decades of trial experience other members of the defense brought into the courtroom at taxpayer expense.

Literally and metaphorically, it was a multimillion-dollar defense.

Although it appeared lost on the Bundys and their supporters, they ought to have shouted hosannas to Navarro for listening so closely — far too closely, prosecutors would contend — to defense arguments that strayed from the specific charges. After previously ruling to narrow possible defenses, Navarro gradually allowed wider latitude during the trial when it became clearer that the prosecution was failing at fairness.

Cliven Bundy’s attorney, Bret Whipple, said he believed the break came early in the trial after a former National Park Service official’s testimony partially contradicted a prosecution claim that the family hadn’t been under armed surveillance. When weeks into the trial those same prosecutors finally coughed up FBI 302 memos and logs that amplified the surveillance issue and placed the indictment’s veracity in question, it was clear the process was prejudiced. Navarro made the difficult decision to end it. (A hearing is scheduled for Jan. 8 to decide whether it will be dismissed with prejudice, effectively ending the legal matter. Don’t bet on a retrial.)

The Bundys and Montana militia coordinator Ryan Payne are enjoying their day in the sun. Prosecutors are at home licking their wounds.

The rest of you should be outraged.

You should be mad that a cattle-grazing issue was allowed to get so far out of hand. What started with a few thousand dollars in unpaid fees has now cost taxpayers millions — and the case isn’t yet over.

You should be ticked off that the government attempted to crush Bundy and his wild bunch under the weight of charges that could have put them in prison for decades over an incident in which no shots were fired. Authorities were trying to send a message to the so-called sovereign citizens movement and anyone who thinks they can get away with pointing guns and menacing federal officers. But in going overboard they wound up sullying their own credibility. This mistrial figures only to embolden the mob that thinks so little of threatening the lives of federal officials — even ones of questionable competence. As one experienced law enforcement observer wondered aloud this week, “They could have saved everyone a lot of trouble by making it a gun case.”

Instead, the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office collected a mountain of evidence — and wound up buried beneath it. When a judge rules you’ve willfully failed to disclose potentially exculpatory evidence — FBI memos, logs and threat assessments — you’ve provided fuel for the very fire you’ve been trying to douse.

And more evidence violations could be coming. If the report of former BLM case agent Larry Wooten, who wrote a scathing and unsparing 18-page assessment of the mishandling of the cattle impoundment, the investigation could flare into its own scandal. Navarro made a point of calling for the opening of previously sealed documents in the case.

While your blood pressure is rising, save some rage for the careworn and tragicomic BLM. Not for the average ranger outgunned in the American outback, but for the bureaucrats buffeted by politics. And save a special catcall for former BLM Special Agent in Charge Dan Love, who when he wasn’t hustling Burning Man tickets, was in charge of the Bundy cattle impoundment. Some of his unprofessional acts and incriminating statements, thought to be sealed in an internal affairs report, should be aired like foul laundry. By multiple accounts, his swaggering egotism was rivaled only by those militia yahoos who drove to the desert for a showdown outside Bunkerville.

Love helped make Ryan Bundy more than an angry constitutionalist and sovereign citizen. He also made him a celebrity.

When asked what the Bundy family would do the next time the federal government came looking to collect its fees or impound his family’s cattle, Ryan Bundy replied, “Do whatever it takes. We’ll do whatever it takes. That’s what we’ve always said. That’s what we’ll continue to do.”

This isn’t over. Starting to get the picture?

John L. Smith is a longtime Nevada journalist and author. Contact him at [email protected]. On Twitter: @jlnevadasmith.