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58 Nos. 77-1698, 77-1210 & 77-1370 earlier, supra at 55, the Supreme Court recently ex- plained that Barr does not afford protection to a federal official who has exceeded an express statutory or con- stitutional limitation on his authority. “[A] federal of- ficial may not with impunity ignore the limitations which the controlling law has placed on his powers.” Butz, supra at 4955. Plaintiffs have presented con- siderable evidence to support their allegations that the federal defendants violated both constitutional and statutory limitations on their authority. Thus, the ab- solute immunity granted to federal officials pursuant to Barr does not apply to the federal defendants in ‘this case. Butz made clear that federal officials should receive no more judicial protection from liability for violating an individual’s civil rights than their state counterparts. The Court stated: . . . in the absence of congressional direction to the contrary, there is no basis for according to federal officials a higher degree of immunity from liability when sued for a constitutional infringement as authorized by Bivens than is accorded state officials when sued for the identical violation under § 1983. Id. at 4958.22 It must be remembered, though, that while Butz concluded that federal officials exercising discre- tion generally are protected only by qualified immunity for their official actions, there are “exceptional situations” where “absolute immunity is essential for the conduct of public business.” Jd. at 4960. The situation of these federal defendants is not exceptional. They were, % The Butz Court held that a federal official’s exposure to civil liability under Bivens v. Sia Unknown Named Agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), should be the same as a state official’s exposure under section 1983. In the instant case, the plaintiffs not only are seeking damages from the federal defendants under Bivens, but also are alleging that the federal defendants, by conspiring with state officials to violate the plaintiffs’ civil rights, violated section 1983. We see no reason, given: the Court’s reasoning in Butz, to give different official immunity treatment to federal violators of section 1983 than to state violators.