It's a legitimate question. Bitly should do a GET request to the resource before creating the 1.use.gov link. This is standard practice. It should work quite we

It's a legitimate question. Bitly should do a GET request to the resource before creating the 1.use.gov link. This is standard practice. It should work quite well in this case because the open redirectors under .gov are just poorly programmed; they're not actively trying to avoid detection.