I mean, yes, I agree that it is obvious. But then that's you simultanously claiming that the DoJ is trying to "force a jury trial" with a pointless claim of monetary damages on one hand, and that they're not trying to game the system on the other. Those don't seem very compatible. It looks way more as if the DoJ knows they're not entitled to a jury trial, would like one for tactical reasons, and spent a lot of time and effort in fabricating a pretext.

(The filing linked to from the article claims that this kind of trial has never gone to a jury in the past, so it really is not some kind of standard operating procedure.)